


Mason Jars

by gzdacz



Series: Mason Jars [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Background Relationships, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I will offer an Original Pig Character to make up for it, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Mentor Severus Snape, POV Alternating, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Self-Harm, Severus Snape Lives, the tags make this sound like a much darker story than it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 42,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26747437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gzdacz/pseuds/gzdacz
Summary: Several months after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry and his friends are figuring out how to best live lives that do not revolve around defeating evil lords. They are possibly not great at it. A post-DH, Snape-Mentors-Harry (Or, Tries To) Story.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Series: Mason Jars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947370
Comments: 53
Kudos: 166





	1. October 22nd, 1998

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this story on Fanfiction.Net a little while ago and as I have finally migrated to AO3, I am bringing it along: it is complete, and an in-progress sequel will be posted concurrently.
> 
> This is largely focused on the development of the Snape-sort-of-mentors-Harry-though-he-sucks-at-it relationship, but several other characters feature heavily. Trigger warnings for: self-harm and suicide discussion and ideation, mature language, and young adulthood being a little horrible. There will be one explicit self-harm scene that I will warn about in advance. Otherwise, this is a little bit of angst, quite a bit of hurt/comfort, dark and snipey humour galore, and everyone trying their best even when their best isn't, well, the best (looking at you, Mr Snape).

**October 22nd, 1998.**

On the day of the visit, thunderheads had scratched themselves into a gloomy sky, and hung menacing above Harry's head. He had seen glimpses of the house in Snape's memories, but he was unprepared for just how tumble-down Spinners End was, years on, mouldered by time and lack of care. Paint had come off in strips, baring the walls. The doorbell was held together by tape. He did not think it made any sound when he pressed it, but after a beat of silence, the door opened on its own accord.

He stepped through and looked, disoriented, from the steep stairway past a dusty corridor and into a seedy kitchen, until a voice rang from the doorway to the right,

'Sitting room, Potter.'

A soupçon of old fear crept up on Harry: the tone matched exactly what he remembered from years spent sick with anxiety in Potions, and he had the sense for a moment that he was about to lose house points. Annoyed with himself, he squared his shoulders. Just a few months prior, he'd defeated one of the most powerful wizards of their time. He'd fought in the war just like Snape had. He would not be cowed like a schoolboy.

Snape sat in a threadbare armchair, dressed in a Muggle clothes, hair pushed out of his face and complexion swarthy from exposure to the Greek sun. His eyes on Harry felt just as intimidating as they had in the classroom, and it was all he could do not to look at his feet. The turtleneck obscured the place the snake had bit. Harry wondered if there was a scar.

'I've brought cake,' he offered, as he took stock of the tea set laid out on the coffee table.

'Shall I genuflect?' Snape replied, with the usual acid. 'There are plates in the kitchen. There should be some dessert forks in the first drawer.'

Nettled already by this small exchange, Harry welcomed the chance of temporary respite, and walked himself to the kitchen. Here, he took a breath, leaning against the old gas stove. This had been his idea. He struggled to remember why he'd ever thought it was a _good_ idea, but it had been _his._

Although the tiles had ingrown with mould, the cutlery and plates were without a mote of dust. Snape would have cleaned them magically, but not bothered with the rest. If there was a spell to cast away mould from kitchen tile, Harry wasn't sure. Mrs Weasley would know it. Harry tried to imagine Snape and Molly Weasley chatting over tea and scones, exchanging household spells. How _do you_ keep your dessert forks so spotless, Severus?

When he returned, carrying two plates of the apple pie he'd been baking at half midnight, he found his tea already poured. Snape sent him a sour look from above the rim of his cup.

'Do you not like apple pie?' Harry asked, stomach tightening.

'It's fine.'

He wasn't sure what that meant. He'd deliberated between apple pie and cheesecake for an hour. Before that, he'd considered wine, firewhisky, a box of chocolates, stationery and Potions books, and even the gold cauldron from Diagon Alley he'd wanted when he first went. Those had all been shot down by Ginny and Ron, which had settled the cake. Ron had grumbled about it, because he didn't think anyone should be baking apple pie for Snape in the middle of the night, but his sole contribution had been proposing Harry bought a nice bouquet of roses, and then sniggering about it for ten minutes.

He shouldn't care if Snape approved of his baking skill, but when he raised a forkful to his lips, Harry held his breath.

Snape said nothing of the pie at all, but he didn't spit it out, either, and after a sip of tea, took another bite. Harry felt a little as if he'd just won another war.

'How was Greece?' he inquired politely.

'Too hot, but I was enjoying the troglodytic aspect,' Snape said. 'I would have stayed longer if it weren't poorly regarded not to accept an Order of Merlin personally.'

'Oh, right,' Harry remembered. 'Congrats on that.'

Snape stared at him.

'Congrats—stop this humbuggery, Potter,' Snape's nostrils flared. Harry did his best to subtly shuffle back in his seat. 'I know you recommended me for it, which is the same thing as if you'd given it to me yourself. Shacklebolt is a fine leader, but he'd award the Order of Merlin to a house elf for doing your laundry right if you so much as hinted at it.'

'Wait, can house elves get the Order of Merlin?' Harry asked, thinking of Dobby. 'Because I actually know one that—'

'Potter!'

'What? Look, sir, I thought you'd be happy. I remember how excited you were when Fudge talked about maybe giving you one for Sirius, in my third year, and you never got that one, well, it was kind of because of me, so I figure it's only fair that I helped you a little in getting this one. And it's not like you don't deserve it—'

'You think I acted the way I did because I wished for an award, Potter?'

'No—'

'And do you truly believe you've done me a disservice by depriving me of a trophy for delivering an innocent man into the hands of the Dementors?'

'I—okay, bad example, but all I meant was, I know you didn't do it to get an award or anything, but you've done so much to help win the war, and all these years you had to keep everyone sort of always doubting your allegiance, so it's only fair that—I mean, I think you should finally be recognised for all the good you've done. That's all. I didn't mean to upset you or anything.'

He'd run out of breath. Snape seemed to have calmed down in turn, as if there existed some set balance in the energy of the conversation, and Harry had tipped his scale. He watched him with narrow eyes, but there was now reflection there, not accusation.

'Merlin knows I don't care a farthing for your opinion, Potter,' he began, though even the way he said it made Harry doubt this was entirely true, 'but I hardly think it healthy for you to twist the facts into some deluded hagiography. I served the Order during the war like many others, and I attempted to fulfil my obligation to Albus Dumbledore and to your mother. I have not gone above or beyond this. Whatever cross you imagine I bore, you can hardly argue I did so with much dignity. As the primary beneficiary of the resulting bitterness, I would have thought you of all people, Potter, would be a little more critical of my conduct.'

Harry stared. Was this post-Greece sunstroke? It sounded very much as if Snape had just admitted to having treated him unfairly, and that had not been on the agenda for this visit at all. It was perhaps a little pathetic, Harry thought, that he was so starved for validation, it felt like no hardship to conveniently forget every cruel thing Snape had done to him. However, Harry's parents were dead, most of his parents' friends were dead, and most of his mentors and role models were dead. Harry was fast running out of adults in his life who genuinely cared for him, so if someone did not wish him dead and wanted to eat his apple pie, he figured he might as well take it. In this respect, childhood damage probably worked to his benefit.

'Are you going to speak, Potter, or are you having a stroke?' Snape inquired, voice dripping with distaste.

'I'm just trying to think of something to say to that,' said Harry. 'I think I understand what you mean. But I guess if I was unable to look past someone's deficiencies, there would be no one left in the world for me to look up to.'

Snape stared at him. He seemingly had no answer to that.

They sipped their tea in silence for a while, while Harry considered the oddity of the scene. Before the war, he would have laughed if someone had said he'd be sharing a cup of tea with Severus Snape. After the battle everything had changed, of course, but even then, he'd thought of Snape in the abstract. He had lain in the hospital wing, where Hermione and Ron had dragged him from the shack after Harry had left, for several days, then had been transferred to St. Mungo's. Harry had been informed when Snape awoke, and when he'd left to nurse himself back to health on the continent, though he'd suspected that choice had less to do with the snake bite than a wish to escape the mess that were the Death Eater trials, the rushed elections, the Daily Prophet insider scopes on Muggleborns murdered. Harry had signed his name on a letter drafted by McGonagall, and co-signed by several Order members, wishing Snape a quick return to health, and secretly fantasised he could run off to Greece too.

'Was there anything in particular you wanted to discuss, Potter?'

Harry braced himself. This had been the reason for coming after all.

'I guess I just wanted to—I mean, we never got a chance to talk after the battle, and I've never thanked you for everything. For, you know, the sword, and delivering me the message from Dumbledore. Without everything you've done to help, we would never have been able to destroy Voldemort,' he noted the wince on Snape's face at the name but did not halt to apologize. 'But also, I wanted to thank you in general, for protecting me all those years. I know it's not—I know it's not much, just saying _oh thanks_ , after everything, but…' he shrugged, growing embarrassed now at Snape's silence. 'I made cake,' he said, with a strange half-wave at the pie.

Snape's mouth twitched.

'You are aware, of course, that I didn't do any of those things _for you_ ,' he said. 'If anything, it may be argued I did them _in spite of you_. And I believe vanquishing the Dark Lord to save the entire wizarding world will suffice as thanks, possibly for any favour you might find yourself receiving in your life.'

'But you weren't protecting me so I could kill Voldemort,' Harry pointed out. 'I mean, you probably wanted me to, but that wasn't why. And I know it's going to sound really childish, but that just means a lot to me, that you would do that for a reason that wasn't limited to, I need him alive to win the war for the rest of us. That you did it for my mum instead,' his breath came out shaky. 'So by your logic, I guess I didn't kill Voldemort _for you_. But I made the pie for you, so that's got to count for something.'

He tried for a grin, deciding he'd humiliated himself enough to risk it. Snape didn't smile, but there was a hint of it in his eyes, and after a moment of silence, he reached for his pie again.

'I hear you've decided not to return to Hogwarts this year,' Snape changed tack, just as the first stroke of thunder trembled outside. It had begun to rain, and there went Harry's easy escape. _I'd better get going before the skies break open_ , he'd been supposed to say, and they would have both known it for an excuse, but silently agreed to pretend.

'No,' he admitted. It was hard to say even that much on the subject. Ron hadn't wanted to go back either and Ginny had taken a year off. But they both had obligations at home – George struggled to do as much as get out of bed in the mornings, and the youngest Weasleys had scrambled to keep Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes from sinking. 'He needs something to go back to,' Mr Weasley had told Harry one night when neither of them could sleep. 'If he loses that, then—then I'm not so sure we're not all wasting our time, trying to make him better.'

But what real reason did Harry have for not going back? Hermione had spent hours trying to talk him into it, prattling on about how important NEWTs were for his future career, and how a return to normalcy was an essential step in trauma recovery. Only Harry had never truly expected to need his NEWTs for much beyond becoming an auror so that he could kill Voldemort. Hermione didn't seem to understand that had been part of the normalcy she wished him to return to. _So that he could kill Voldemort._ Without it, there could be no 'normal.' Returning to school, to essays and books, in the place where he'd watched friends die; to being loved and hated by the student body for something he did, genuinely, do, this time; to being expected to live up to the moniker of evil wizard slayer, to excel beyond what he'd ever been able to accomplish, even with Hermione holding his hand – it all filled Harry with such crushing fear, you would not have guessed he was the Boy Hero of the Wizarding World. And he wasn't sure it was worth it anymore.

None of that he could possibly share with Snape. Thankfully, the man didn't ask.

'I'm assuming you've been taking the time to reconnect with family,' he said instead. Harry couldn't help but smile at the image of himself, trading stories with his aunt and uncle. The Masons threw a barbecue party in the middle of November, _what_? No wonder you're still shaken up, Aunt Petunia. I can relate, I'm still recovering after being hit with a killing curse and coming back to life.

'No, I haven't seen them. I've mostly been staying in Grimmauld Place.'

'You're staying in Grimmauld Place?' Snape repeated, frowning as if the idea struck him as wholly incongruous. 'Why on Earth would you do that?'

'Oh, I own it,' said Harry, realising Snape might not remember. 'I got it in Sirius' will—'

'I know _that,_ Potter,' Snape waved him off. 'I was referring to the fact the place is miserable, and long deserted by the Order. And you've elected to live there _alone_ , instead of returning to your Muggle family?'

'I'm not all alone,' Harry ignored the comment about the Dursleys. He was oddly annoyed with Snape for being so blind. 'Kreacher keeps me company.'

'Of course, not even the most loving of families could ever be a match for an ancient house elf who conspires to kill you in his free time.'

'That wasn't really Kreacher's fault—I mean, it's a long story, but he's really nice now.'

'Well then,' Snape mocked, 'of course in that case it hardly matters he has openly despised you for years, as long as he's _nice now_. Perhaps we should contact Mr Shacklebolt. I believe this calls for an Order of Merlin.'

Harry glared at him. He did not like the feeling worming its way into his chest: a sort of uneasy shame, as he realised some small part of him thought that actually sounded like a fair idea.

'Grimmauld Place is not nearly as miserable as here,' he retorted. 'And you don't even have a house elf to keep _you_ company, sir, so I really don't think you're one to talk.'

Almost immediately, he froze, realising what he'd said and _how_ ; anticipating an outburst, he shrank a little, then remembered he'd promised himself he would not be cowed. It was easier said than done.

'There is one major difference in our circumstances, Mr Potter,' when Snape spoke, his voice was surprisingly level, if cold. 'I have no family to return to. You, on the other hand, seem like you need a reminder that several people you fought for are very much alive.'

Harry blushed. He thought of Hermione, who was probably sitting in the Hogwarts library right now, going through her Transfiguration notes alone. He thought of Teddy, too: he still hadn't found the guts to ask Andromeda for a visit.

'What is your plan if you're not returning to Hogwarts this year?' Snape hardly allowed him a moment to breathe. 'Do you still intend to get on the Auror Programme?'

'I don't know,' Harry mumbled. 'I'd need my NEWTs for that anyway.'

'Please,' Snape huffed. 'As if Harry Potter himself will have anyone asking after his NEWTs.'

'I don't want to cheat my way in! If I did that, the programme I mean, then I would go and get my NEWTs first—'

'Judicious. But until then, am I to understand your intention is to sequester yourself in your godfather's house until you've been driven into depression?'

'No,' Harry spat, glaring at him. His teacup shivered with the vibrations of the storm outside. The window was streaked with rivulets of rain. 'But I can't go back to Privet Drive—I mean, my Muggle family. I just need some time to figure stuff out, that's all—'

'Why not stay with the Weasleys, then? I believe Ronald Weasley is at the Burrow anyway, as well as the young Miss Weasley.'

'Well, I've stayed with them for a while, and I come visit,' Harry said, thinking Snape had a curiously detailed knowledge of his ex-students' whereabouts. Perhaps it was a natural instinct, to stick your nose where it didn't belong, when you'd been a spy for nearly two decades. 'But I'm eighteen now, I can't very well hang around there indefinitely. And I don't know how long it will take me to—I can't just keep thinking how I should hurry up deciding something for their sakes. And it's not like they would ever allow me to pay rent, so—'

Snape regarded him with obvious befuddlement. Harry didn't know how he could explain the hot coil of, whatever the feeling was, some sick perversion of shame and gratitude and _ache_ , that took hold in his chest whenever Mrs Weasley served him breakfast in the morning like he belonged. He didn't think he wanted to try, either.

'I am unsure how to even comment on that, Potter,' Snape said plainly. 'I very much doubt you'd listen to a word I said anyway, so perhaps that makes little difference.'

Harry crossed his arms and stared resolutely at the wall to the right of Snape's head. He wished it would stop raining.

'I have some items for you,' Snape said after another awkward silence, rising to his feet. 'Finish your tea.'

Harry took a gulp, nearly choking himself on it, and craned his neck to follow Snape's path until he disappeared into the dark corridor. He heard footsteps leading up to the first floor. He stared, miserably, at his piece of apple pie, wondering what sort of items Snape could possibly have to show him. Another one of Dumbledore's messages from beyond the grave? What if it were something of Voldemort's, some magical artefact, some new piece of the puzzle Harry had thought they'd closed the lid on?

It had been months since they'd destroyed the last Horcrux, and Harry was still just so _tired._ This had been part of the reason, too, why he'd elected to curtail the time spent at the Burrow: after a few days of smiling at Ginny's jokes, of leaping off the chair to help Mrs Weasley with the washing up, of going out to play Quidditch in the lawn and politely enthusing over Mr Weasley's new car, there would come days when he couldn't even get out of bed. On those, he would send Kreacher away to Hogwarts: if he were to stay and see that Harry did not have the energy to even shower, he would insist on drawing him baths, on spoiling him with meals in bed, on changing him into day clothes himself. Harry didn't think he could stand it.

Snape returned with a small wooden chest, and Harry hastened to sweep the cups and plates to the side to make room. Snape touched the tip of his wand to the copper lock and the lid creaked open, revealing a mess unlike anything Harry could have anticipated.

'What are these?' he asked, stopping himself before he instinctively reached to touch. The chest held leather-bound books, notepads and albums, but also a myriad loose scraps of paper, some crumpled and frayed, and countless trinkets: an elephant figurine with a broken-off trunk, a postcard, an old hard candy, sundries so bizarrely commonplace, ugly or damaged, that many seemed to belong in the bin.

'Some things I have of your mother's,' said Snape, and Harry choked again, this time on what felt like his heart.

He went straight for an album. He could count on his fingers the number of photographs of Lily Evans he'd seen in his life, and here they were, pages and pages of them: little Lily in a flowery dress and a face streaked with chocolate sauce, little Lily posing with her wand _en garde_ , little Lily sticking her tongue out at the camera. Some of the pictures featured Snape, but he was much more camera-shy, and rarely pulled the sorts of faces she did; and none of the pictures moved. They must have had access only to a Muggle camera, likely his mother's, and they were too young to know the spell.

'When I received your letter, I assumed this was the reason you wished to see me,' Snape said. He wasn't looking at Harry, but at his fingers on the pages of the album, as if reassuring himself he was being careful with it. 'I will admit I am surprised you haven't asked.'

Harry hadn't asked because this was too much. He didn't think Snape understood what he had given him: he likely thought Harry had grown up hearing stories about his mother, and reminiscing over old photographs, instead of being too afraid to ask Aunt Petunia what colour Lily's hair had been. As Snape saw it, Harry was simply discovering a new facet of her, hungry for more like any orphaned child. He didn't know he was giving Harry something he had no longer hoped he would ever receive.

'Well, you didn't want me to know,' Harry spoke slowly, scrabbling for something to explain himself without giving too much away. 'In one of your memories, you had Professor Dumbledore promise he wouldn't tell me, and the only reason you'd given me those memories in the first place was because you had to get me to believe you. So, I didn't want to overstep.'

Snape looked at him at that, eyebrow arched.

'I'm not sure whether you've discovered some deeply buried recess of respect for privacy over the past year, Potter, or if I should check you for Polyjuice Potion.'

Harry's fingers tensed, crinkling the page, and Snape barked at him to be careful. He had been referring to the Pensieve incident in fifth year, likely, which had been so long ago it was decidedly petty to even bring it up. Then again, Snape had hated Harry on sight for things his father had done over a dozen years prior, so Harry didn't know why he should be surprised. He was, though, and the disappointment ached: disappointment with Snape, but more so with himself, for having expected any different.

'I guess I find it easier to show respect to people who have earned it,' he retorted, too upset to mind his tone. He imagined getting the rest of the apple pie from the kitchen and smashing the tray into Snape's face. It helped.

To that, Snape said nothing. Harry breathed for a minute, listening to the patter of rain against the windowpane, before taking out another album. This one held quite a few moving photographs, many taken at Hogwarts. He liked especially a set from a winter trip to Hogsmeade, complete with static-stood hair and butterbeer moustaches. He realised he had a photograph of himself and Ron, taken some time in fourth year, in which he laughed in the exact same way Lily did here, as a teenage Snape pouted at something she'd said.

The initial shock had faded, and now he was beginning to feel awkward in the silence, with Snape's glare drilling into him. He cleared his throat, shifted where he sat, and then for lack of other ideas, grabbed the elephant figurine from the chest, and asked,

'What's that?'

If he hadn't been looking, he would have missed the way Snape tensed in surprise at the change of tack. When he replied, his voice was coarse.

'Lily found out my maternal grandfather came from Pakistan,' he said, eyes now trained somewhere above Harry's head. 'It must have been the summer before our second year at Hogwarts. She had been bored for weeks, and thought it was the most exciting thing. We went to an Indian store, which was the closest we could get to Pakistan. It sold ceramic figurines and pottery, and she insisted on buying me an elephant, for luck,' there was a shadow of a smile, then, as his gaze grew longer, focusing on somewhere Harry couldn't see. He felt a stab of jealousy. 'They had a whole shelf filled with those, and she picked the only damaged one. She said if we didn't buy it, no one would, and she felt sorry for it.'

'And I'm the one with the saviour complex?' Harry said before he could stop himself, and Snape _chuckled_. It was a simple sound of amusement, and if it came from anyone else, Harry would not have even counted it a laugh, but this was _Snape_. If the auror thing didn't pan out, perhaps Harry should consider a career in stand-up.

It was easier after that. Harry would pick up random notes exchanged during class, drawings, old letters and cheaply made Muggle toys, and Snape would contribute anecdotal evidence to their importance. The moments he described were chiefly mundane, even inane. Harry knew there must have been other events he remembered, grander, more important: neither Snape nor his mother had fought a Basilisk during their early Hogwarts career, but Petunia and Lily had been fighting, and Snape's parents had not been great, and there had been bullies, crushes, arguments and the rising tensions as Voldemort gained influence. But these were not things Snape would have discussed with him, and Harry found that he preferred it that way: these small details were what he'd craved all those years, a sense of a real person, palpable proof of existence.

Once the rain had stopped, Harry glanced at his watch and realised he had decidedly outstayed his welcome. He thanked for the tea and arranged everything with care back in the chest, with the trunkless elephant on top. Snape watched him stall, then proposed Harry selected a few photographs from the albums that he wanted to make copies of. With a grin, Harry pulled out all of them, 'These,' he said, and stacked them in front of Snape, who rolled his eyes.

'You do realise the spell requires you copy each photograph individually.'

'I don't know the spell.'

He thought he would have a bit of good-spirited fun with it but was ready to concede at Snape's next complaint. It never came. Though his tone left no room for mistaking he had better things to be doing with his time, he taught Harry the incantation and wand movement, and they spent the next quarter of an hour spelling a copy out of each and every photograph.


	2. October 31st, 1998

**October 31st, 1998.**

The street was overflowing: she'd thought the main alley in Hogsmeade was crowded, but here, it wasn't only the people, but also the cars and buses glinting their red eyes, and she instinctively drew a little closer to Harry, who navigated the bustle with easy confidence. She had been to Muggle London before, but a few times only, and never on Halloween, which apparently meant everyone and their cousin had gone out dressed as cheap knock-offs of real monsters.

Ginny had meant for them at first to go get a drink somewhere in Diagon Alley. Luna had told her about a coffee shop that in the evenings served cocktails which hovered above your table in bubbly whorls you would pierce with your straw; and if Luna had been impressed, the place would have been odd enough to inspire giggles and aid the conversation flow. She had been worried about conversation flow. They hadn't gone out on a date since, well, forever, and though they had kissed at times and never discussed it, she was no longer sure they were even _together_ together.

But she'd seen the twitch in Harry's face when she mentioned Diagon Alley. She doubted anyone would have given them much trouble in Luna's favourite coffee shop – Luna's favourites tended not to align with anyone else's – but had proposed instead somewhere less magical. Harry had cheered up then, and they'd gone up to ask George which London bars were good for date night. He had recommended several, and it had been the longest he'd spoken in a week. He'd smiled, too, and kicked at Ginny's hip where she sat on his bed when she'd mocked him for his expertise.

They eventually found their way into a busy cocktail bar with a spacious upstairs. Harry held up the queue for nearly five minutes trying to decide on his drink, and Ginny was a little worried the bartender would flip her off when she finally shouted their order, but she only smiled indulgently, took off her kitten-ear headband and pushed it onto Harry's head.

'He's a werewolf now,' she shouted back at Ginny. She wore a ripped shirt stained with fake blood and a studded collar. Ginny had thought it an odd outfit to couple with kitten-ears, but clearly the bartender had never examined up close what a werewolf's ears looked like. 'He has the hair for it!'

Harry's hair had grown a little long and stood unkempt after their walk through the windy outside. The headband nearly disappeared in it. Uneasy, he thanked the girl, then collected the drinks and followed Ginny upstairs to find a table.

The music was quieter here. Ginny's drink was pink and thickly sweet. Harry hadn't tried his yet.

'These are clearly kitten ears,' she told him.

'Yeah,' he laughed, but didn't take them off. Even once his face had returned to a neutral expression, it held the trace of a smile: she supposed it must have been a novel experience for him, to be singled out not due to reputation, but because a girl thought he would look cute as a werewolf kit.

'This is a change from the Hogwarts Feast,' she said to break the silence. His teeth flashed in a smile. He still had the most perfect smile, she thought. 'Although I never liked it much after my first. Always worried I might find myself in the mood for wall painting again.'

'My first Halloween at Hogwarts, I nearly got killed by a troll. Also not an experience I wanted to repeat.'

'Unfortunate. I think troll-fighting might be part of the Auror job description.'

A shadow passed over his face. 'Not on the holidays,' the joke did nothing to cover up his unease. Ginny wondered if it was better to ask or leave it alone altogether. He'd been fragile since he'd come back. They had all been more fragile.

'How's the shop?' Harry asked. 'Is it still as fun as it first sounded, or are you hating it now?'

'Tending toward the latter,' she admitted. 'I mean, it's not—it's not the worst job in the world. But Ron and I have never been much good at Charms or Potions, so we're not even going to attempt coming up with new product. And with the creative element of it gone, it's just shopkeeping. Which was exciting at the start, but now…'

'Ron seems to like it.'

'Ron needs less stimuli.'

Harry examined her face closely. There was something in his gaze that didn't strike Ginny as like him at all, and it made her shy.

'We all need less stimuli, I think, after what we've gone through,' he said finally. 'But you weren't there for the worst of it, and you're better at taking things in your stride. You shouldn't be stuck counting change for a full year just because the rest of us can't deal.'

And _that_ was the truth, wasn't it? They had all been a little fragile since the war ended, only Ginny had got over her fragility months ago, and every day had to quench the miserable frustration with the rest of them, rising in her: we don't tell Dad to come out of his garage and do something useful, Ginny. We don't ask George when he intends to get out of bed, Ginny. We don't interrogate Ron on what happened during their time away last year, or talk to Harry about possibly doing something with himself beyond moseying around Grimmauld Place like an old ghoul, or make plans for a Christmas trip to see Charlie because George might not want to go without his brother, and Percy might prefer to stay in the country for work and they shouldn't leave him alone, and we can't ask Harry to go because he's sensitive about family activities, and—

And Ginny was a selfish, heartless wench for thinking these things, she knew. But she'd lost a brother, too. She'd spent nearly a year building up the Hogwarts resistance under the Carrows' reign, and she'd been threatened with death and struck with Cruciatus. And yet, she was expected to take care of everyone else's trauma, and carry on strong but kind, and never complain. If she dared to, Mum would set her right in a second.

Meanwhile, all Ginny wanted was to get back to living a life.

'Ginny?'

She'd been quiet for too long. She hoped that in the dark, he couldn't see the single tear that rolled down her cheek.

'Yeah,' she said, wiping it surreptitiously as she lifted her glass to take a sip. 'But I can't leave Ron to manage the store alone.'

'He'd be fine, and George will help him if things get really bad. Or your dad, or Bill, or, I don't know, even Percy.'

Ginny nearly spat out her drink. 'Can you imagine Percy trying to sell a Skiving Snackbox? Or telling a customer the Dungbombs are three-for-two today?'

'Tell him it's the best way to honour Fred's memory or something,' Harry said, a little mocking. Percy had been excessively emotional for too long. By now, they all found his tearful reverence annoying. 'He'll jump right on it.'

'Please, you _must_ get this week's hit, a full box of Canary Creams, half price _,_ ' Ginny simpered, pinching her nose for that nasal quality of her brother's voice. She finished off with a fake sob, 'It's what Fred would have wanted!'

As Harry giggled, it struck Ginny how callous they sounded. They joked about death these days like it was nothing, like it was a strained ankle or a stubbed toe.

'I've never asked you how your visit went with Snape,' she said once they'd both calmed down. 'Did he like our pie?'

'I think so. He had me take the tray but leave the rest behind.'

Ginny tried to imagine her old Potions professor sat in front of the fireplace, devouring a mountain of Harry Potter's signature apple pie. It wasn't difficult. She'd been learning that everyone became a little different with PTSD.

'Are you going to see him again?' she asked. Harry had told her the barebones of what had happened between them during the Battle, and she found the whole thing extremely curious. She could tell Ron grew tense whenever the topic was breached, so she hadn't asked at all the last time Harry had come over, but Ginny herself had never had much of an opinion on Professor Snape. He'd been strict and quite a bit unfair in class, but she'd always been perfectly mediocre in Potions and hadn't talked back much, so he'd largely left her alone. She'd known he killed Dumbledore, and that he'd had some measure of control over the Carrows, but even then, he'd been an abstract figure to her, disconnected largely from lived experience, almost like a character from a storybook.

'I doubt it,' Harry shrugged. 'When I went, it felt like a conclusion to that, uh, chapter of our lives, I guess. I thanked him like I'd meant to, he sort of implied he'd not been very nice to me, we looked through old stuff he had of my mum's. Feels like an endpoint. I'm not sure what reason we would even have to see each other again.'

Ginny nodded. The sadness looked bizarre on his face, still adorned with the kitten ears. He had been through so many endpoints to so many relationships, she sometimes wondered how he hadn't collapsed under the weight of it yet. Just losing Fred had felt like a chunk of her had gone, like she had now a gaping hole in her side no one could see. Harry must have had little flesh left.

She thought about kissing him. He had very white teeth, visible in glimpses as he eased his mouth open to drink. There was enough of his hair to pull at easily, and the kitten ears were quite adorable, and he would taste like Piña Colada and safety.

She didn't kiss him. Instead, she said,

'I think I might go to Charlie's for a while.'

He looked at her in surprise, but only for a second. Then, he smiled. It reminded her she was still so very in love.

'Will you give Norberta my love? It'll be the largest, meanest dragon you find.'

Ginny thought she could feel the small chunk of warm flesh she'd taken out of him, then, before it dissolved in her hand.


	3. November 19th, 1998

**November 19th, 1998.**

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_I am writing to request your aid with a research project I have recently undertaken. I am working on developing a potion to reduce, and perhaps eliminate, scars formed on skin subjected to spells falling within the umbrella of the Dark Arts._

_I noticed during your visit you had scarring on your hand, which I assume is the effect of being repeatedly subjected to the Blood Quill during the time Dolores Umbridge resided at Hogwarts. As blood and cutting spells fall within the purview of my research, I would be indebted if you would allow me to test a few samples on this scar._

_If you are amenable, please inform me what day and time would suit._

_With regards,_

_Severus Snape_

_***_

_Dear Professor Snape,_

_Your project sounds really interesting. You are correct in your estimation of my scar, which I would prefer to get rid of if possible, so you can definitely use it for your experiment._

_If I can ask, I don't suppose the effects of the Killing Curse would fall within the purview of your research? I get that there haven't exactly been many victims of Avada Kedavra who lived long enough to worry about scarring, so I understand there is no point in you intentionally working toward including it, but maybe we could test it on my scar (forehead scar I mean) as well?_

_I am available any time this week except Saturday. Let me know what works best, and I'll swing by Spinners End._

_Best regards,_

_Harry_

_***_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_There is no need for you to travel to Spinners End. I will come to your residence, which I understand is Grimmauld Place. Expect me at 5pm on Thursday._

_As for your forehead scar, I do not purport to know enough about its nature to attempt an answer. You are correct in saying there have not been many cases of wizards surviving the Killing Curse, though if you were to delve into magical history, you would find you are not completely unique. However, several phenomena linked to your scar, such as your connection to the Dark Lord, are enmeshed with your having become a human Horcrux as a result, which I believe had been considered impossible, and thus remains unstudied._

_We may discuss this on Thursday, although I do not see why you would wish to be rid of your signature scar in the first place._

_With regards,_

_Severus Snape_

_***_

_Dear Professor,_

_This may come as a shock to you, but I don't actually enjoy walking around sporting proof on my forehead that I am a freak of nature, or that I was marked out as a baby to kill Voldemort and save the wizarding world even if it meant my parents died in the process. You will also find it hard to believe I would love to walk down Diagon Alley without having people point at me and call out comments on whether I look tired or that I'm shorter than they imagined. I know you think I'm in love with myself and have been bowed to and waited on my entire life, but what I genuinely want is for everyone to just conveniently forget who I am and stop expecting things of me that I can't possibly live up to. So yes, I **would** wish to be rid of my 'signature scar,' actually._

_Harry_

_***_

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We will discuss this further at 5pm on Thursday._

_Regards,_

_Severus Snape_


	4. November 23rd, 1998

**November 23rd, 1998.**

At five minutes to five, Harry's crippling anxiety, Harry's two dozen insecurities, Harry's foolish desire for acknowledgement from people he didn't even like, and Harry himself, unanimously decided this was going to be a disaster.

The kitchen was in a state. His bedroom was worse, with sheets tossed and stained, and old pizza boxes crusted over, but even Harry's crippling anxiety struggled to come up with a scenario in which Snape would need to venture into his bedroom. He'd made lunch for Ron, Percy and George when they'd dropped by a week ago on their way to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and he hadn't done the dishes since. He'd also made a mess of the kitchen, then, when he'd dropped an egg in haste and not even noticed until it had been smeared all over the floor, and the butter he'd meant to put in the oven for _just a minute_ to soften had melted completely to drip and burn nastily on the bottom. It had taken him an hour to vent out the smoke.

The lunch had been a success, at least. Percy had complimented him on working to gain adult life skills and requested a recipe for the tarte to impress his new girlfriend. George had joked that Harry had better stop making him feel inadequate or he would quote him in his suicide note. No one had thought this funny, but they had still laughed. Ron had looked at Harry like he'd known exactly where he'd learnt to cook like a chef, but he'd said nothing of it, and taken a second helping. They hadn't seemed to suspect Harry would spend the rest of the day in bed, too exhausted to even remove the dishes from the dining table.

Harry's weak grasp of household spells meant he had little idea how to clean an oven with magic, and his washing spell had nothing against week-old pots. It didn't help that he'd procrastinated on tackling the issue for most of the day, until, an hour before Snape was due, he'd panicked and spent fifteen minutes on the kitchen floor, in the sticky week-old egg white, trying to calm his breathing into less of a panic attack and more of a background angst.

At T-5, Harry gave up on the kitchen. He would bring Snape into the sitting room and disallow him movement. If he wanted a glass of water, too bad. Harry wouldn't be fetching anything either, not after the insinuations of Snape's second-to-last letter. Oh, but he wished he could go back in time and, instead of penning his rant of a response, simply ignore the fact that Snape was a dick. This was not news. Harry had no desire to discuss anything. Maybe if he dazzled Snape with how well he was doing on his own, having it all together and admitting guests in rooms not stenched up with rotting food, Snape would feel wrong-footed and never bring up anything that might make Harry feel more insecure.

Hence, he spent the last few minutes desperately trying to recall the dusting spell.

The doorbell rang. Grimmauld Place had always been dark and disgusting anyway. At least the sitting room held only the subtle smell of a place unused, and a thick layer of cobweb and dust. Harry hoped Snape wasn't allergic.

'Potter,' came the curt greeting when Harry opened the door. 'You have flour in your hair.'

Harry cursed. In the rush to make the house presentable, he had forgotten to check himself in the mirror.

'Baking another pie?' Snape taunted as he pushed his way inside. He was wearing Muggle clothes again, and held a leather case.

'No,' Harry snapped. He didn't point out that Snape hadn't earned any more pie, though he really wanted to. 'Sitting room.'

They sat on the sofa. It creaked dangerously under their combined weight and puffed out a plume of dust. Snape set his case on the coffee table. Inside were several vials, gauze, quill and parchment, and a fancy ruler glinting copper.

'Your hand,' he requested. Harry's heart was beginning to slow. If Snape maintained this no-nonsense practicality, perhaps they would be done with the whole thing within minutes, and the man would leave Harry to his panic attack.

Snape held his hand with more gentleness than Harry had expected, and used the fancy ruler to measure the length and width of the scarring. The lettering was faded, but the sentence _I must not tell lies_ still decipherable upon close inspection. Snape, however, said nothing of it.

'Can you estimate the total duration of your exposure to the Blood Quill?' he asked softly as he flicked his wand at the parchment, where the quill began jotting down data.

'Uhm, well, the detentions lasted maybe an hour and a half each,' Harry strained his memory. It all felt like it had happened in some other life, and to someone else. 'And I had—I mean, I don't really remember how many times I had detention with her that year.'

'I need only an approximate. Was it between two and five? Five and ten?'

'Between twenty and thirty, I guess.'

Snape's eyes widened briefly, but again, he elected to keep any comment to himself, and merely noted down the information. Then, he opened the first vial and overturned it onto the prepared gauze. Harry felt suddenly nervous.

'Will it hurt?' he asked.

'You might experience mild discomfort, but I have observed no pain in previous experiments,' Snape assured, before pressing the gauze to Harry's hand. It tickled in a way that made Harry want to squirm away.

'You've tried it before on someone else?'

'I've tested all samples on animal subjects first and then myself,' Snape said blandly, looking at his watch.

A minute or so of silence later, Snape pulled the gauze away. Harry peered down at the scar. It seemed to him precisely the same, and he felt a sinking sort of disappointment.

'It's not working.'

'I believe the potion will need to be applied for at least twice the length of initial exposure to take full effect,' Snape said without worry, taking up his ruler again. 'I am looking at this stage only for an infinitesimal change.'

'Twice as long as—so I would need to keep it on me for—' Harry felt himself tripping over the maths as his distress grew.

'About sixty to ninety hours,' Snape supplied. 'Although they need not be consecutive. We'll try the next brew, now.'

This one, Snape had Harry hold for three minutes. The following, for five. By the time they'd got to the final vial, they had spent the better part of an hour in near-complete silence, broken only by the scratch of the quill, and Snape's sibilant requests when he needed Harry to sit still or move his hand. There was a hypnotic quality to the repetition. Once it was over, Harry almost wished Snape had secretly brought in another case.

'Did that help?' he asked as Snape began putting everything away.

'Every trial is helpful. Once I have adjusted the potion, I might need you for another.'

'Sure.'

'I have not noticed any adverse effects myself, but as this is a new brew, you will rest for another half hour,' Snape ordered. 'Inform me immediately if you feel anything out of the ordinary.'

Then, he stood. The sudden, choppy way he moved wasn't nearly as impressive without his billowing cloak, thought Harry, and wondered again why Snape seemed to have shunned wizarding clothes.

'How am I supposed to tell you, just by owl?'

Snape stared at him for a beat. 'No, Potter, not _by owl_. I am merely going to the kitchen to fetch you some water.'

'No!' Harry yelled, straightening immediately. Snape startled back in surprise, knocking his legs into the coffee table.

'Potter, what the hell—'

'I mean, you can't go to the kitchen, sir, you're my guest,' Harry lied quickly. 'And I'm not that thirsty anyway, and I—I don't like water much.'

'I will make tea, then,' Snape watched Harry like he was trying to decide if he was a threat to others or merely to himself. 'Hydration is an important safety precaution when ingesting potent potions.'

'I won't have it,' Harry vowed.

'You _will_ have it, Potter, because I said so,' Snape seethed. 'Now, sit down—'

'If you want tea so badly, I'll go and make it for you, okay? Like I've said, I'm the host, so I shouldn't be sending you off looking for the kitchen—'

'Potter, I've been in and out of this house several times, I am perfectly capable of finding the kitchen.'

'It's not there anymore!' Harry blared, now bodily blocking off Snape's way. 'I've made a lot of changes since I moved in.'

'You've changed where the kitchen is,' Snape repeated slowly. Not seeing another option, Harry nodded solemnly. 'I swear, Potter, I've forgotten over this past year how infuriating you are. Now sit, or I will make you.'

Harry decided he would be a poor host if he reminded Snape which of the two of them was responsible for killing his precious Dark Lord, and thus shouldn't be trifled with. When he was shoved out of the way, he sunk down instead, resigning himself to his fate. He felt tired again.

With Snape gone and the immediate future bleak, Harry's eyes and thoughts gravitated toward the case left on the table. There was plenty potion left, and though Snape had strongly implied it was unlikely any of it would work on Harry's forehead scar, he didn't think there would be any fault in trying. He had only been exposed to the Killing Curse for a few seconds, hadn't he, which meant if this were to somehow work, he might be able to get rid of the blasted thing before Snape got back with his stupid tea.

With shaking hands, Harry prepared another gauze just as he'd watched Snape do. He didn't quite dare hope, but it was a near thing.

At first, he felt only that same gentle tickling. Then, it grew in intensity, and then grew some more, until it twisted, loosened, and turned straight into pain.

Distantly, Harry felt himself slide down the sofa. His knees thunked on the floor. The pain was blinding, deafening, and it drilled down his skull, eating through flesh and bone and brain—

Footsteps thrummed to his right. Snape had shoved a tray of tea onto the coffee table, then yanked Harry's hands away from his face, tipping his chin up to see. Harry realised he'd been keening.

A wand tip jabbed into his forehead. Harry screamed over Snape's murmured incantation. It did nothing.

'Bloody hell. Potter, call your house elf.'

'…what?'

'Call your house elf, now.'

Snape's hands, Harry now saw, were the only thing keeping him from crumbling onto the floor. He wished Snape would let go. Then he could tip face-forward and find some relief for his forehead when it pressed against the cold wood. 'Kreacher,' he whispered, tightening his throat to hold in the groan.

He appeared with a pop, right onto the tea tray, sending the pot and cups to shatter on the floor. Though he'd never said it, Harry knew Kreacher had some idea he hadn't been at his best. Whenever he apparated into Grimmauld Place these days, he acted with the sort of urgency that indicated he'd been expecting to step straight into disaster. This was precisely why Harry hadn't asked him to help clean up before Snape's visit: he would prefer to hold onto, at least, some semblance of appearances.

'Master!' Kreacher exclaimed, ignoring both the spilt tea and Snape's fussing over where he'd been hit with a splatter of boiling water. 'Does Kreacher kill the wizard, Master?'

Harry chortled somewhere into Snape's shirt. 'No, Kreacher,' he managed. 'Don't kill him, please.'

'You will go to my house in Spinners End and get a vial of Skin Cleansing Potion from my lab, as well as the blue pain reliever,' Snape was clearly not in the mood for jokes. 'Potter, tell him to obey me.'

'Yeah, do what he says, please, Kreacher,' Harry wheezed. He was clutching at Snape's shoulder with enough force to bruise. He would have to remember to feel bad about that later.

With one last distrustful glare at Snape, Kreacher gave a bow and disapparated. Harry counted his breaths as they waited, but got horribly lost and had to start over. Snape's exhales made the hair on the tip of his head move.

The moment Kreacher reappeared, Snape shoved Harry onto his heels, yanked his head back, and poured the entirety of the Skin Cleansing Potion on his forehead with no warning but a curt, 'Close your eyes.' It was cold and slimy, and dripped into Harry's ears as Snape rubbed it into his scar with jarring flicks of the wrist. It did nothing much for the pain, and Harry grumbled his discontent, but then Snape was pouring half the other vial over his head, and a wonderful languid ease flooded Harry like the incoming tide.

Snape jerked his head forward to a somewhat comfortable position and pushed the blue vial against his lips. 'Drink,' he commanded.

'Is the wizard ordering Master around?' asked Kreacher suspiciously. 'Kreacher can banish the wizard from Master's presence if Master wishes.'

'Would you kindly send your house elf away, Potter,' Snape requested with fake sweetness, 'before he finds himself banished from _my_ presence?'

'You can go back to Hogwarts now, Kreacher, I'm fine,' Harry reassured him. 'Professor Snape is a guest, we don't want to banish him.'

'A guest?' Kreacher's eyes widened. 'Kreacher hasn't been told Master will be entertaining anyone except the blood traitors. Kreacher would have dusted.'

'Sorry, I'll let you know next time,' Harry promised.

With a huff, Kreacher shook his head at Harry's ineptitude, and disappeared again. Tea was still dripping on the floor. Judging by the size of the dark stain, at least half a cup's worth had soaked into Snape's trousers.

'What in Merlin's name possessed you, Potter?'

Harry sighed, sitting back against the couch. He was feeling too drained to be yelled at.

'Nothing, I just wanted to try and see if maybe it did work on my scar, since you made it clear you wouldn't help with that. Sir,' he gave what he hoped looked like a nonchalant shrug. For all his posturing, he couldn't quite make himself look up from the floor.

'You are the most idiotic, irresponsible, insubordinate child I have ever had the displeasure to meet,' Snape assessed. Harry tried to remember the last time anyone had called him a child. 'Why do I even bother trialling the potion in a controlled environment? Why would I take the time to research Blood Quill scarring prior to preparing the brews for this experiment? Why would I bother restricting testing to small doses administered over a short duration? I should have thrown together some random concoction and poured that all over your body, and just seen what stuck!'

'I didn't know it would do this,' Harry argued lamely, though shame threatened to break his voice. 'You said there wouldn't be any pain.'

'I've also said your scar was unlike anything I have studied, and that I did not feel qualified to even guess at what possible effect the potion might have on it!' Snape bellowed. 'I am aware you hold some truly bizarre notion that ridding yourself of the thing is a good idea, but it had never crossed my mind that I couldn't trust you to not try and maim yourself if I left you alone in the room for five minutes!'

 _Maim_ was a wild exaggeration, Harry reflected, before he dabbed at his scar with a tentative finger and it came away slick with blood. The pain was gone, leaving behind only a throbbing numbness.

'And what on Earth happened to your kitchen? Aren't you supposed to have a house elf, or is he not _nice enough_ yet to do his job?'

Harry shrugged again. After a moment, he heard Snape sigh as he got up and began straightening up the mess with precise flicks of the wand. Harry took up some clean gauze and attempted to wipe the slimy combination of potion and blood from his face. This was turning out to be as much of a disaster as he'd prophesized. Trelawney would have been proud of him.

Snape left, then returned with another pot of tea and a tall glass of water. Harry hadn't even tried to argue before leeching himself to it: he'd only just remembered he hadn't had anything to drink since morning.

'I'm sorry,' he said softly. With a pang, he remembered his grip on Snape's shoulder, and guiltily mused whether he'd left a bruise.

Snape did not acknowledge the apology, but poured the tea into his cup rather than over Harry's head, so that counted for something.

'If you do not wish to be so easily recognizable, why don't you change your hair or glasses?' his voice was rough from shouting. 'They're both quite distinctive.'

Harry tried to imagine himself with hair dyed blonde, or the sort of half-glasses that Dumbledore had worn. He shuddered.

'Might as well go ahead and get plastic surgery,' he said, before catching himself, 'Oh, that's this Muggle thing where—'

'I know what plastic surgery is, Potter.'

Right. Half-blood. Muggle clothes that actually matched. Muggleborn childhood friend.

'I don't want the attention, but I don't want to change everything about myself to accomplish that, is all I mean.'

'Yet you would risk pain and injury to rid yourself of your scar when a well-placed glamour could at the very least fool passers-by,' Snape leaned back on the sofa, humming in reflection. 'Which suggests that your true intent isn't evading the spotlight. What other nonsense did your letter mention?'

Harry gritted his teeth. He had to remind himself he was too tired for another argument.

'Ah, yes,' Snape continued leisurely, tipping his head and tea toward Harry like they were holding a book club. 'I remember now. Much of the lament involved weak jibes at things I had said or insinuated in the past, did it not? But there _was_ one passage that drew my interest. I am fairly confident I have not once implied you were a 'freak of nature,' as you put it.'

'I guess I'm not always derivative,' Harry retorted. He set his teacup down and sat on his hands to stop them trembling.

'Of course, Petunia was rather fond of that particular turn of phrase.'

'Was she?' Harry asked evenly, as if indulging him.

'Look, Potter, if you've had some sort of falling out with your family, that is your business,' Snape declared firmly, and Harry felt a strange combination of relief and disappointment. 'But I will inform you that there is nothing at all out of the ordinary about you. As I've said, historically, there have indeed been other cases of wizards surviving the Killing Curse, and we know this relies exclusively on a love sacrifice. The survivor has no bearing on the result. As for your being a Horcrux, the Dark Lord's soul had been damaged so severely that it shattered unlike anything we'd ever observed. It seems the fragment would have attached itself to any living thing in vicinity, so it was not as though anything about you in particular facilitated the process.'

Harry swallowed around the mass in his throat. He knew all this, he thought, but it felt different to hear it vocalized.

'I can always trust you to remind me of my mediocrity, can't I, sir?' he quipped, then felt immediately guilty about it.

'I never said you were mediocre, Potter,' Snape spoke, surprising Harry into glancing up to meet his gaze. He seemed annoyed and looked away quickly. 'I suggest you try listening to what you are being told for once instead of putting words in my mouth. I merely meant that your natural state, at birth, was entirely within the ordinary.'

Harry dropped his gaze. Some ugly, deformed thing, which he'd picked up in childhood and thought to have outrun, announced itself extant and eager. His fingers dug into the plush cushion as he fought to contain the warm ache spreading over his body. He wasn't certain whether the feeling was something to help him abate the scheduled panic attack, or if it would make it worse.

'Hermione has a few of these scars,' his voice came out high and weak like a child's, and Harry had to cough to clear this throat. 'Bellatrix cut her with something when we were in Mafloy Manor, but I don't think it was an ordinary knife, because nothing's working on them. I guess it must have been spelled with dark magic somehow. I don't know if that's something that might help, but I could ask her if she wanted to trial the potion, too.'

Snape was watching him extra closely, Harry could tell. It was making him squeamish.

'If she's agreeable, ask her to send me details. Anything she remembers of the knife, the location and approximate size of the scars, and estimated duration of exposure.'

'Okay,' Harry nodded, then brightened as something occurred to him. 'Oh, could you test it on Draco as well? I mean, the Dark Mark is kind of like a Dark Arts scar, isn't it? Would it work for that?'

He glanced up at Snape, whose face had frozen in a blank expression. 'Possibly,' he said after a moment.

'Well, if you're going to go to Hogwarts anyway, you might as well try it on him, too. I can write Hermione to ask.'

'I wasn't aware Miss Granger was now Mr Malfoy's keeper,' the tone was offhand, but curiosity flashed in his eyes.

'Well, not that many people from our year are around anymore,' Harry shrugged. 'I guess they were sort of forced to get along. And Hermione doesn't really mind who you are as long as you let her proofread your essays.'

Snape smiled. Harry was struck with the impression that he'd seen this particular smile before, which made absolutely no sense.

Then, he remembered the photographs. Harry's new albums were full of Snape smiling exactly like that. It lasted longer in the pictures, though, the expression frozen still in time; in reality, Snape's scowl returned a fraction of a second later, and he fell right back into looking at Harry like it pained him.


	5. December 2nd, 1998

**December 2nd, 1998.**

With a flick of the wand, Ron placed the final warding spell on the door to the darkened store. He'd done the windows first, the incantations so second nature by now that he'd been thinking instead about delayed dragon scale deliveries and whether Kamilah, the newest addition to their clerk team, did or did not hate him. Percy thought he hadn't gained her respect and would thus fail in the role of leader. George thought Kamilah hated everyone and everything, but Ron and working at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes held a joint first honours. Ginny had met her briefly before running off to Europe, and claimed in a letter Kamilah was probably only awkward. That comment had been her only mention of the store. The rest of the letters since had been filled with anecdotal evidence of having a much richer and more exciting life than Ron's was.

It was not that Ron minded, exactly: he'd learnt a lot since taking on the business and now that the initial anxiety had eased off, he enjoyed the work. But he felt _guilty_ for enjoying the work. Hermione talked about the gargantuan amount of reading she must do to get seven NEWTs, which she _had to get_ or else her future 'would be ruined' and she would 'never amount to anything.' Ginny had told him to his face that working in the store was a waste of her time. He had initially blamed her for leaving, but then he saw how furious Mum had got over the whole thing, and had decided not to. Merlin, Mum – Mum had landed a job at the Ministry. For the past week, she'd been overseeing the retrieval of data on underage Muggleborns, some of which had got lost in the hubbub, others who had gone into hiding. Ron didn't think it was bloody fair for him to be made to feel guilty about not wanting to save the world every day.

A flake of snow spiralled down the dark skies and landed on his cheek. It felt nice against reddened skin. He could feel sweat clinging to his shirt, and held his coat thrown over his shoulder. The closing clean-up should really have been done with at least two people, but Percy was away on Ministry business, Mum didn't want George staying out late, and with one look at Kamilah's hostile expression, Ron elected he would rather face You-Know-Who again than ask her to stay.

Diagon Alley still fluttered with activity at this time, though it was focused in and around pubs and restaurants rather than shops. Oil lamps hung in mid-air above the heads of passers-by, throwing long shadows on the thin layer of first snow, tinted orange with the low light. Ron's shoes crinkled pleasantly as he marked a fresh trail of footsteps, now tracing his path from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes to the Leaky Cauldron.

Inside, witches and wizards huddled close to the roaring fireplace. It was getting late enough for alcohol to flow more freely and voices to rise. Behind the bar, Tom spotted him and nodded in greeting.

'He's upstairs,' he said.

'Ordered anything yet?' Ron asked as he made his way to the bar. It was glinting clean but for a persistent stain, currently wiped away at by a merry piece of chequered cloth. It looked suspiciously like blood. Ron did his best to ignore it.

'No.' For a bartender, thought Ron, Tom wasn't very chatty.

'We'll have two butterbeers then. Maybe some toast, do you still do toast? With ham and cheese?'

'Does it look like breakfast hours?'

'Not for me, for him.'

Tom peered at him watchfully, like he knew he was being manipulated. He ultimately resolved he did not care. 'Ham and cheese toasties. I'll bring it up.'

Ron pulled out his satchel and dropped a few coins on the counter. It felt odd to him still that he could now go out with Harry and pay for them both. That had always been Harry's job. He'd tried to be discreet about it every time, pretending he'd forgotten they were meant to split, apologizing to Ron after, but despite what many people thought, Ron wasn't a complete idiot. And now he was a not-idiot with money to spend.

Harry was waiting in a private room Tom had allowed them to use, where Ron imagined wizards once held secret councils: Death Eaters plotting to overthrow the Ministry, Order members disputing strategy, 15th century clan heads selling their children into marriage. Now, Ron would congregate here with the saviour of the wizarding world, and they would play chess and eat ham-and-cheese toasties. Like many things in life recently, it felt almost too incongruous to be real.

'Hey,' Ron stopped in the door, giving Harry time to return to reality. Last time, he'd stepped right through without warning and kicked Harry's armchair in greeting, and he found himself flat on the floor, stupefied dumb and trickling blood onto the rug. Harry hadn't been able to decide whether to laugh at him or have a panic attack. It hadn't been a great night.

This time, Harry merely grinned at him from his seat by the fire. 'Scared, Weasley?' he spoke in a lowered voice. 'Perhaps the last incident has taught you a little something about CONSTANT VIGILANCE?!'

Ron snorted, then sank into the other armchair. He'd held his chessboard against his side and under the coat to protect it from the snow, but it still felt a little slick with wet. 'You're getting better at this whole greeting thing, mate,' he praised him. 'Maybe you could just try for a _hello_ next time.'

The chess set was positively ancient by now. Ron had drifted in and out of stores, looking at boards in dark ebony, boards in glinting walnut and rosewood, chess pieces cut in deep crimson marble. He needed a new set and he would have been able to afford it, but at the second or third glance at the price tag, a twisted sort of shame pooled into him, and he would rush out the door with eyes firmly on his own feet.

They'd each made several moves by the time Tom arrived with their order. The butterbeers foamed grandly at the top in swirls of cream, and the toast had been stacked up generously on a large gold-rimmed plate.

'I just wanted a snack,' Ron heaved a sigh. 'Tom can't help going overboard when the Boy Saviour is around, can he.'

Harry winced.

'Anyway, have some, won't you?' he added quickly. 'There's no way I can finish it alone.'

'Ron Weasley can't finish it alone?'

'It was a slow day. I had nothing to do but eat all afternoon.'

Harry took a toastie. He had always been slim, but now he seemed to Ron a reed, and easily as breakable as one. His cheeks had wizened into hollows, his hair had turned dry and dull. Ron thought he would not have noticed, seeing him almost every day and watching the change progress gradually, if not for having watched the same signs sprout on George's body over the past months. Only the world revolved around George these days, and every cut and rash and sharp bone was caught early and fussed over. And Harry was just – still Harry. Ron couldn't tell how much of it was pretend.

He was still a dolt when it came to chess, at least, and that part seemed genuine enough. Ron beat him easily in the first round, then gave him some leeway in the second to delay the inevitable.

His pocket flared with warmth. At the same time, Harry reached into his, pulling out a shiny galleon, and smiled. 'Care to guess where she is?'

He pulled out his own coin but stopped himself reading the message, putting a finger to his lip as if in careful deliberation. 'Oh man, I don't know. The Quidditch pitch do you think? Building snowmen on the grounds? Maybe partying in the common room?'

'No luck,' Harry grinned. 'Working on her Ancient Runes essay in the library.'

'That's no fair,' Ron complained. 'How was I supposed to guess _that?_ '

Harry laughed again. That sounded the same as the old Harry, too. When Ron glanced down as his coin warmed again, he saw Hermione's message disappear as the reply Harry was spelling onto the gold took its place. _Losing to Ron in the Cauldron,_ it read. _We're having toasties._

They had each a coin. Sometimes, they used them to convey meaningful messages, like inquiries over Hermione's test results, or when the next Hogsmeade weekend was so they might meet. More often though, one of them would feel a tug of panic sometime during the day, eating alone or walking in the dark or trying to fall asleep again, and spell on their location, _sofa in the Burrow,_ or, _getting back to Grimmauld now,_ or, in Hermione's case, indefatigably, _in the library_ ; and wait the few seconds it took for the other two to respond. If not for the ready reassurance of the coins, Ron thought he would have lost it months ago.

Hermione and Ron had an extra coin each, connected only to one another. They had never told Harry about those, though Ron suspected he knew. It shouldn't have been a secret, and it shouldn't have felt wrong: after all, Ron was hardly going to send Hermione kisses goodnight with Harry there to see it, lest he die of shame. Beside the kisses, they mostly used them to talk about Harry anyway. Ron sometimes felt upset over it. Then, he would go to bed and sleep it off, and try to wake up in a better mood.

 _Draco snuck in a sandwich,_ the coin warmed again. _But Mrs Pince took it. We think she's eating it herself._

Harry chuckled. _Poor woman's hungry,_ Ron wrote back. _If not for you, maybe she'd be able to close the library for long enough to get some food._

'Do you ever think,' Harry said suddenly as he stared into the flames, 'that the war's pretty much ruined you for regular life?'

Ron glanced at Harry's drink. It wasn't even half empty. He must have been starved if that much butterbeer had got to his head. They didn't _do_ heart-to-hearts. They played chess and teased one another and Ron tried to force-feed Harry. That was it.

'I mean, we did so much,' Harry continued, apparently disinterested in waiting for a reaction. 'Every day, we did something important. Saving lives. Defeating Voldemort. Whatever. And now, I just can't—there's nothing left to do. At first, there was rebuilding Hogwarts, and the funerals, and the trials, and that was fine, but now there's just nothing. And I feel like I'm never _doing_ anything.'

Ron felt a stab of irritation but tried to quell it. 'I mean, do you really want to get back to saving the world every day, mate? Cause I don't know if you've forgotten, but it was bloody exhausting.'

Harry shrugged. 'I don't have to save the world. I just want to do something that feels even a little worthwhile. And I can't even do that much, but I'm tired anyway. I was never this tired when we were saving the world.'

'There was no time to feel tired,' Ron observed. 'On account of having to get back to saving the world.'

Harry hummed. He took another gulp of his beer. Ron edged the toastie plate closer toward him.

'You're doing something though,' he tried. 'You're helping Snape with the potion thing, aren't you?'

Harry scoffed. 'That's only because Hermione went mental,' he said. 'I think she's forgotten he's not her teacher anymore and she doesn't need to deliver an extra three feet to cajole him into giving her an O. He's only asked me to help weed through her letters because he thinks it's _my_ fault for recommending her for the trial.'

This was the thing: Ron was trying to be supportive, but he honestly felt as though Harry had no real reason to complain. What had Harry been doing lately? Oh, only living on his own, standing witness in several Death Eater trials, donating much of the Black fortune to charity funds, and now helping the ex-spy, ex-mortal enemy bat of the dungeons develop a potion that might transform the world of healing. What had Hermione been doing? Researching the knife she'd been scarred with into the wee hours of the morning, to help with that same potion. Serving as head prefect. Escorting traumatized students for check-ups in St. Mungo's. Becoming study buddies with ex-Death Eater prodigy Draco Malfoy.

What had Ron done? Well, he'd discovered three galleons were missing from the counter last week. It had turned out that George had taken them to buy a pig and forgotten to say. The pig was supposed to be good for depression, like a dog only quirky. It drove everyone insane, including George. They were still fighting over what to name it.

Harry had apparently been broken out of whatever reverie the flames had induced, because a jerk went through him and at once his eyes refocused on the foreground. He gave Ron a meaningless smile, took a toastie, and pondered his next move. Ron felt left behind in the reflection. And maybe a little left behind, period.

It was what he had always suspected, he supposed: all the excitement and singularity in his life had been courtesy of his two friends. Without them, Ronald Weasley was a perfectly ordinary guy, with a life as boring as you would expect from a shopkeeper who liked his job.


	6. December 3rd, 1998

**December 3rd, 1998.**

The basement laboratory smelled pungently sweet with the fumes from several concoctions percolating in rusty cauldrons. It was cold despite the multiple fires going, and yet Harry had already sweated through his shirt. He must have gone through Hermione's letters a dozen times over, with coloured pens and post-it notes and journals scribbled over with notes, and yet he felt ill-prepared, and jittery with it like before an exam he had not studied for.

Snape had sat him down on a stool by the smallest cauldron, bubbling with a potion yellow like liquid gold, and without ado began interrogating him on the details of Hermione's scars, and the additional information she had provided as it pertained to whatever research questions he had previously set. He jumped from one issue to the next with lightning speed, and though the parchments sent in by Hermione were concerned with Dark Arts and curses more than potions themselves, significantly boosting Harry's confidence in understanding them correctly, he still scrabbled to keep up, stammering over his answers and flipping through his notes with trembling fingers.

He should have told Snape to shove it, he thought. How was it _his_ responsibility to help him extract useful information from Hermione's barrages? He could be safely tucked away in Grimmauld Place right now. Kreacher could be serving him lunch on a silver tray, excited to be allowed the privilege after days of absence from the house. He could be wondering why he wasn't doing anything with his life and what that said about the point of it even going on, which would normally have sounded like a grim prospect, but right now was rather appealing.

'Are you unwell?'

He stuttered, surprised by Snape's sudden swerve in line of inquiry. Unwell was one way to call it.

'I'm fine,' he said.

'You're shaking like a leaf, Potter,' Snape observed, tone rather baleful for asking after someone's health. 'If you're cold, might I suggest fetching your coat, or possibly eating something every once in a while.'

'I'm not _cold_ ,' Harry gritted his teeth. 'I guess maybe I'm not super comfortable being interrogated by a teacher who's made it a point to mock me in his class for six years, in the same setting the class took place. Sir.'

He hadn't meant to sow the seeds of animosity. He'd told himself before he first came to Spinner's End that he would have to lay the past to rest if he were to have any chance at speaking to Snape in a civilised manner, and that the man _was_ a war hero and thus did not deserve his vitriol. Going by the displeasure evident in Snape's arched eyebrow, he'd managed to muck that up, too.

'Harry Potter, Vanquisher of the Dark Lord and Protector of All,' he drawled, in a tone that only served to pull Harry further back in time, all the way to when he'd first stepped into the Potions classroom, still full of hope. He'd abandoned that hope within the next hour, and for years had no desire to search for it again; now, he had excavated a fraction, and couldn't help but feel he was all the worse for it. 'And he is afraid of his old professor? I cannot wait for the news to make way to the Daily Prophet. I will make the front page.'

'Great,' Harry said, resolutely fixing his eyes on the floor: if he didn't look at Snape, he could perhaps stop himself from strangling Snape. Or punching Snape. Or hexing Snape. Or doing all three, then turning over every last cauldron, and running out and back to Grimmauld Place to spend the rest of the afternoon crying in bed or something similarly pathetic.

'Don't be difficult, Potter,' Snape warned. 'There's absolutely no need for your fuss. I must complete and deliver several potions to St. Mungo's this week, and I have no time for Miss Granger's misguided ambitions. It will do you good to dip back into the academia, especially if you're still even considering going back to get your NEWTs next year.'

'These potions are for St. Mungo's?' Harry asked, easily identifying the only part of the statement he could safely engage with.

'Yes, Potter, these potions are for St. Mungo's,' Snape parroted. 'Not all of us live in the lap of old money, and researching experimental potions is not a lucrative pastime. I lost two batches of Blood Replenishing Potion yesterday and I have no time for your moods.'

Harry sighed inwardly. Unfortunately, he seemed to have plenty of time for _Snape's_ moods, as he found himself saying, 'Can I help?'

At least he knocked him out of his blistering frustration with everyone and everything: Snape now stared at him with apparent confusion rather than anger. 'Can you?' he mocked.

'I could cut up ingredients or something,' Harry offered, shrugging. 'If you're making these in bulk, there's probably a lot of prep involved.'

'Have you not just a moment ago whined about feeling uncomfortable as much as sharing a room with me?'

That was so far off Harry's actual statement it seemed more a fabrication than aggrandisement, but he elected not to argue the point. 'Not like I don't have the time,' he said. 'And I'd like to do something worthwhile. I've not been doing much of that lately.'

Snape's gaze was scrutinising. Harry could not imagine what he might be seeing.

'Fine,' he announced finally. 'I venture you don't know the recipe by heart, so go find it in the library upstairs. You'll need to prepare enough for two batches. Multiply everything by six.'

Harry scrambled to stand, torn between satisfaction and dread. 'Blood Replenishing Potion?'

'Isn't that what I said?'

Preparing the ingredients was a monotonous job, and a thankless one at that, as Snape barely acknowledged him, grabbed dragon scales and conserved leeches and ground roots off the cutting board without warning or thanks, and often barked at him comments such as, ' _Finely_ ground, Potter, do you understand what that means?' or 'Merlin, would you hurry the nettle, Potter?' Still, Harry's initial tremble had subsided. He continued pointing out to himself the differences between his current situation and scenarios of the past: the Potions classroom had been much bigger. There was no Malfoy here to needle him. The cauldrons were older and more worn, and Snape wasn't wearing his Batman cloak. No one could take points or threaten Harry with a failing grade, and Snape was too focused on his own work to bother coming up with original insults. Finally, the aim was not to survive the hour but to make a potion that would help someone get better.

Even with Snape's less-than-friendly tone, it was preferable to sitting around Grimmauld Place wasting the afternoon away. He had so much time these days, yet it was never enough to get round to _doing_ anything with it. He'd been meaning to call Dudley. He'd been supposed to write Andromeda to ask about seeing Teddy. He'd thought about visiting Bill and Fleur, and Dobby's grave. Writing to Hagrid. Going up to the Ministry to meet the new head of the Auror Department, like Kingsley wanted him to. Every morning, he would get up intent on doing at least one of those things, but then suddenly it was afternoon and he still hadn't changed, and then it would get late and he would get tired, and he'd end up stretched on Sirius's bed, looking through his old adventure novels and records.

'You know, Potter,' said Snape suddenly, startling Harry into slicing the next leech completely off-angle. 'I can imagine your previous experiences might have led you astray in this regard, but it is not every day that you'll be able to do something _worthwhile_ , as you put it.'

This was such a non-sequitur that Harry stood stunned, unable to form any kind of response.

'Supposing your definition of the word isn't some nonsensical fluff about sunsets and laughter,' Snape continued as he turned to stir the potion counter-clockwise, 'you cannot expect to do anything truly worthwhile with any reliable frequency, or you will find yourself growing fast frustrated.'

'I know I can't expect to be defeating dark wizards every afternoon,' Harry argued. 'I'm not stupid. I only meant smaller things. Like, you're doing something useful basically every day, aren't you? You're making these potions that help people get better, _and_ you're working on another one that will help even more people get better. That's pretty worthwhile if you ask—'

'Do not draw comparisons between us,' Snape interjected. Harry wondered if Snape truly hated him so much that he would bristle at even the hint of equation. 'I have a sum of vastly distinct experiences and I am at a completely different stage in life.'

'Okay, fine. I know I can't do the things you do, alright? I can't go off making potions for St. Mungo's or anything.'

Snape let out a pained sigh, like the whole discussion was giving him appendicitis. 'What I _mean_ , Potter, as you would undoubtedly be able to understand if you tried using your brain, is that you are incredibly young. When I was your age, I had my own periods of miserable inactivity. You are not a special case. In fact, I imagine you share your current angst with much of the young adult population.'

'I guess you meant it as some sort of reassurance,' Harry mused aloud, 'but honestly it's just made me feel worse. I must have been a setting a new trend without realising; that's the risk of fame, you know.'

'Hilarious,' Snape commented drily, which made Harry grin wider. He was still fairly certain no one in the world could be as pathetically unable as he had been these past months; but it did help, just a little, to hear someone say they'd felt even vaguely similar, and ended up fine.

Well. With Snape, 'fine' would need a wide berth. Bitter and friendless and unable to relate to others, more than anything. But still alive, thought Harry, and able to do worthwhile things again.

When Harry was leaving that afternoon, fingers stained from purple pus and brain shrunk from extended concentration, he was presented with several vials, glinting blue, purple and silver.

'Four single doses of the Calming Draught,' Snape recited as he gestured to the blue vials, 'four doses of the Sleeping Draught. A vial of Calamity Draught. I will not aid you in self-medicating to your heart's content, so you will use them sparingly, and you will have to ask for more if you run out.'

Torn between embarrassment and gratitude, Harry didn't quite know what to say. He eventually settled for, 'What's Calamity Draught?'

'It heals minor cuts and bruises. The brewer who named it thought she had a sense of humour, I imagine.'

Harry forced himself to give him a smile. He'd near sliced off a finger cutting the ginger roots, and Snape had done his best to resist calling him an idiot, though it had rung in his silence.

Snape cleared his throat. 'If I were speaking to anyone else, I would say it will take care of most mundane misadventures, but I do realise your ordinary day includes at least one near-death experience, so I will refrain from making promises.'

The dry humour helped loosen the knot in Harry's throat. The odd thread of tension that had stretched itself between them disappeared. 'Thank you,' Harry managed. 'I will try not to have too many near-death calamities. But then I always _try_ , so I'm not making promises either.'


	7. December 18th, 1998

**December 18th, 1998.**

It was, Hermione thought, one of the oddest circumstances she had ever found herself in, and the last seven years of her life had set the bar fairly high. She was certain her discomfit showed on her face. Harry looked positively ill, Professor Snape like he was trying very hard to stop himself saying something too honest, and Draco was watching Hagrid's every move like a gazelle trying to tell the lion from the bush.

The idea had initially been to meet in Hogsmeade, but Draco wasn't allowed off the school grounds. Neither Harry nor Professor Snape were allowed _on_ the school grounds without special permission from Professor McGonagall, who thus had to be consulted, and had at first protested vehemently the idea of students being 'used as laboratory mice.' Then, she had explained to Hermione that though she had little against the idea _personally_ , other staff and students might not take as kindly to Professor Snape's presence in the castle after everything that had transpired. Hermione then had the pleasure of conveying the message, because these days when you needed something disagreeable done at Hogwarts, you enrolled Hermione Granger. Fortunately, Professor Snape had not complained about their exile to Hagrid's hut. Harry had attempted to argue, outrage bright on his face, but he was told not to 'make a production' and promptly quietened, though the storms of insult continued to war on his face. There was something infinitely uplifting, Hermione thought, in Harry Potter still believing so vehemently in the concept of _fair._

Draco had changed his mind about coming at least a dozen times, the frequency of these shifts skyrocketing in the hours leading up to the meeting. He would increasingly focus his arguments on Hagrid's supposed thirst for revenge, Hagrid's doubtful hygiene, Hagrid's inability to tell poisonous potion ingredients from tea leaves, and Hagrid's murderous menagerie. Hermione had taken just enough offence to make it seem believable, but she was convinced that whatever the true source of his reluctance, it had nothing whatsoever to do with Hagrid, and that he'd been counting on picking a fight with her in the hopes she would forbid him coming.

Once they'd exchanged stilted greetings, Hagrid largely ignoring Draco and Draco pointedly pretending Harry didn't exist, Hermione offered to go first, and pulled back her sleeve to reveal the jagged scar lines from Bellatrix' knife. She had more on her hip, thigh and back, but she was certainly unwilling to share these with the class. Professor Snape applied his samples in near-silence, speaking only to Harry when he wished him to note something down, until Hermione asked him one question too many, and he resigned himself to explaining every step of what he was doing in a forcefully pained tone, like she was his torturer for ever displaying interest.

Hermione had once been a little afraid of Professor Snape, but even that had never stopped her from asking about his craft. After she'd dragged his body, oozing every possible body fluid and shaking with the effects of the poison, out of the Shrieking Shack, it seemed silly to hold onto the old intimidation. Hermione had spent the last months in conversations with St. Mungo's Healers, Ministry officials, and every last teacher on staff; she had no issue showing respect, but it was becoming clear to her with every passing minute that she no longer felt inferior.

Draco stood by the far window, having ignored all offers of tea or biscuits, too important to listen to Professor Snape's explanations, or to even acknowledge he was being unsociable. With him, Hermione felt inferior still, and hated it. She had thought that with his fall from status, with the loss of money and respect and family, that she would be able to see him as an equal: but it turned out it didn't matter, because he was still every inch wizard, bred so purely that she felt next to him like a mistake, a magical accident; like she had no real reason to be here.

She had never told this to anyone. When she and Ron had first properly spoken of Draco back in October, she'd given him reasons he could understand: she felt sorry that he was ostracized by everyone regardless of politics; there had been much talk of inspiring unity, and Hermione as head prefect was perfectly positioned to set an example; she would need to deal with prejudice plenty once she'd started working in the Ministry, and it behoved her to learn by practice. She hadn't told him she wanted to be there when Draco Malfoy made an error in his essay or struggled to remember the incantation for a spell she knew. That she wanted to see him be absolutely disgusting as he blew his nose when he had a cold, and stumble over the pronunciation of a long word. Because maybe then she would be able to convince herself she could be what he could be, and do what he could do.

It never worked. For every spell he'd forgotten and she'd remembered, there would be another he recalled with ease. For every error, an Outstanding on a test. It didn't matter if she'd got an O, too. She still went to bed feeling like she wasn't enough of a witch and hating herself for thinking it.

'Yer a proper Potions Master now, are yeh, 'Arry?' Hagrid was saying. He'd been by the kitchen, making more tea: it was disappearing fast with their attempts at softening the biscuit bricks. 'Running experiments, all professional-like with yer journal, eh?'

Professor Snape smirked but did not comment, focused on dabbing Hermione's forearm clean.

'I'm just assisting, Hagrid,' said Harry, catching Hermione's eye above Snape's head and sending her a private smile, and she had to bite her lip to stop the chuckle. Harry Potter playing assistant to Severus Snape, location: Hagrid's hut. 'I'm pretty sure you need to apprentice for years before you get to call yourself a Potions Master.'

'I'm pretty sure you need to graduate to call yourself a Potions Master,' Draco spoke up from his window spot. 'Or to call yourself a wizard, I imagine.'

'Draco,' Hermione and Professor Snape chastised as one. Their eyes met briefly in surprise, before they quickly looked away again.

Harry let out a nervous laugh. 'Darn it,' he said jokingly, but it fell flat, 'why's nobody told me?'

An awkward silence fell, until Snape finally tucked his vials away and announced he was done with Hermione's part. She stood quickly to make room for Draco, who was looking wildly between them.

'Sometime today, Draco.'

'What, and all of them are going to stay and watch?' Draco reflexively yanked his left sleeve further down. 'I'm supposed to show it off for Potter's entertainment?'

'It's not like I haven't seen it before—' Harry tried, but was interrupted when Snape held up a hand.

'Mr Potter is assisting me in my research. If you are uncomfortable with that, you are free to leave.'

Draco's face was fast losing its few traces of colour. He'd been looking like a ghost since he'd come back in September, and though Hermione had got used to seeing him hollow-cheeked and purple-eyed, Harry had started when they first walked into the hut, shocked at the transformation.

'Fine,' he said tightly. 'Potter can stay. But I want you two to leave.'

Hermione did not appreciate being ordered outside like an obstreperous dog, but there was a desperation in his eyes when he sent her a glance. 'Hagrid, have you picked the trees for the Great Hall yet? Would you show me?' she asked smoothly.

They had not been in the garden five minutes when the door banged open, and a flustered Draco emerged. A voice from inside was speaking evenly but Hermione could not make out the words.

'Fuck you,' Draco told the voice, which Hermione heard fine. As did anyone else who might have happened to be on the grounds at ten o'clock on a rainy Saturday.

He then rushed off, coat tangling up in his elbows until he tossed it off in frustration. Not quite knowing what she could possibly do, but unwilling on principle to let a livid ex-Death Eater return to a castle full of twelve-year-olds, Hermione sprinted after him, throwing Hagrid an apologetic, 'Just a minute!' over her shoulder.

'No,' Draco said immediately once she'd got close enough to hear him. 'I am not going back. Forget it.'

'Fine, don't go back. But what on Earth even happened?'

'Nothing!' Draco yelled, spinning around to face her. 'Nothing _happened_. Oh, only one of my father's closest friends turns out to have betrayed his confidence even _before I learnt to walk_ , and in all his holier-than-thou ways, has he ever tried to tell _me_ that he wasn't the Dark Lord's lapdog like he'd been pretending my entire childhood? Do you know where my father is? Azkaban. How about my mother? Oh, also Azkaban. And where is dear family friend Severus? He's been holidaying in Greece. And he's best friends with Harry Potter now. I guess that's what happens when you get an Order of Merlin for being a treacherous, self-serving, half-breed _scum_.'

Hermione stood frozen to the ground. Whatever it was she felt, it showed on her face, because he'd marked the change and his own features shifted with it.

'He was a spy,' she said flatly, like she was reading off the back of a leaflet. 'I cannot believe he'd ever sat you down and tried to talk you into joining Voldemort's ranks, but he could hardly tell you not to, either.'

'I know that—'

'I have never liked Professor Snape very much,' she continued, fixing her eyes on the collar of his shirt. 'I respect him for the things he's done during the war, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't particularly like him as a person. However, I would prefer it if you didn't refer to him as _half-breed scum_ in my presence.'

Draco drew a breath, then let it out. He didn't say a word. The wind was vicious. Hermione felt in her pocket for a band to tie her hair with, because it kept getting in her face. She did not look up from his collar.

'Not to mention, he has now agreed to try and help you erase physical proof that you fought to bring a psychopathic serial murderer to power. Which I'm not even sure you should be able to do. If it were up to me, I'd leave it on you forever.'

She looked him in the eye. She could feel the thick droplets hanging off her lashes. She hoped he could tell them for tears of fury, not sadness.

'Hermione—'

'Draco.'

She turned around before he could say another thing, tears now rolling down her cheeks. She walked slowly, so that by the time she'd got to the hut, she'd wiped off all evidence.

Inside, Professor Snape and Harry were engaged in an argument, though what it was Hermione couldn't have said, as they both fell silent the moment she stepped back in. She shrugged off her coat. Professor Snape would likely be leaving, but Harry would want to stay a while longer to speak with Hagrid, and Hermione could think of nothing better than having another mug of tea, maybe tucked into Hagrid's least furry blanket. She had a mountain of work to complete by tonight, and more tomorrow – she'd planned on clearing the slate before the end of term – but she found herself not caring.

She was suddenly reminded of another time she'd sought refuge in Hagrid's hut. It had been the day Ron had been throwing up slugs, and she'd had the word _mudblood_ explained to her for the first time. Six years had passed since then, and she had done more in those six years than she could ever have imagined as a thirteen-year-old girl. And yet, when it came down to it, she was still only _that._ There was nothing to be done to change it _._

She'd been supposed to go to the library with Draco when they were done, to work on their Defence essays. Well, that wasn't happening anymore, so she might as well idle time away with her _half-breed_ friends.

'Are you okay?' Harry asked, concern cut into his face. Clearly, getting rid of the tears hadn't been enough.

'Oh, I'm fine,' she waved him off. 'I don't think he's coming back though.'

'No, I imagine not,' Professor Snape said, standing up to pull on his cloak. 'I have to say, I do wonder what possible reason there might be for this attempt at alliance, Miss Granger.'

'It's important for Death Eater children to not feel alienated from wizarding society,' Hermione said importantly. 'All school prefects this year have been working with the goal of unity in mind.'

'Oh, I am confident the arrangement is highly profitable to Mr Malfoy,' Professor Snape agreed easily. 'But I struggle to see what benefit it could possibly have for you.'

Hermione thought he was probably right, but couldn't bring herself to say it.


	8. December 24th, 1998.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a self-harm scene toward the end of this chapter. It is not horribly graphic, but if this may be a trigger for you, please proceed with caution. The start of the scene has been marked off with three asterisks, like so ***.

**December 24th, 1998.** **  
**

Two years ago, he'd been in the Burrow for Christmas Eve, fretting over Malfoy and disappointed with Ron and Hermione's row. He'd sat by the Christmas Tree with Ron and Ginny, and Fred and George were showing them Muggle card tricks, and they'd all got a little drunk on mulled cider and hollered with laughter when the twins kept dropping cards and asking to start over.

Three years ago, he'd been worried about Mr Weasley, and hating the sour moods of Grimmauld Place, and wondering whether it was safe for his friends to even be around him. On Christmas Eve, Sirius had played carols from an old gramophone that screeched more than sang; Ron had said Kreacher had probably done the vocals. After twenty minutes, Sirius had got bored and, to loud protests from Mrs Weasley, had put on a hard rock record instead, and Harry and Ron had entertained themselves imagining Kreacher in spandex and spiked wristbands.

Even last year, though he'd had more pressing things on his mind than the date, and consequently had barely registered Christmas Eve, it had been special. Hermione had held his hand when they stopped by his parents' grave. The messages engraved onto the barrier by the Potters' house had wished him good luck on his quest. He had gone back to see everything he had lost but emerged with some sense that perhaps he had more things to fight for than ever.

Harry wished now he could go back in time, shift his attention from the no-good things he'd been so obsessed with, and appreciate every Christmas Eve he hadn't spent stretched in pyjamas on the bed in his dead godfather's room, alone and un-showered, and with no fight in him left.

He had gone out earlier that day to finalise his Christmas shopping, hoping that the frenzy of last-minute scavenging would insulate him from curious stares: for the most part, it had worked, and he'd disappeared into the Hogsmeade crowds as if he were just another wizard with eyes glazed with haste and gift bags swinging from his hands.

He'd chosen Hogsmeade because Luna had told him she'd be there, and he hadn't seen her since June. They went to a jewellery store to pick out a present for Luna's auntie, 'Her life is quite boring, and she has very conservative taste,' Luna told him, 'so we must get her something unique to rescue her spirit.' They settled for a necklace with a dragon medallion that breathed fire at anyone who stepped too close. Harry tried to imagine buying one for Aunt Petunia. He would have found it funny on any other day, he thought, but then, it only filled him with an odd sort of ache.

He bought Luna a necklace, too, with a Billywig figurine in deep blue: the label read _for mental focus,_ and Luna would be getting her NEWTs soon. Luna got him one from the Hogwarts-inspired display shelf, with a pendant in the shape of the Giant Squid, so it would 'remind him of all the good times.' None of Harry's memories of the good times involved the Giant Squid, but he'd put it on when they formally exchanged gifts over Butterbeer, and it still lay against his chest now, tickling him whenever it moved its arms.

He'd had presents for Hermione and all the Weasleys ordered by owl-post weeks before, but had in true Harry Potter fashion left the worst for last: he'd had little idea what to get Teddy – if it was too expensive, Andromeda might think him snobbish; if it was too cheap, he would come off stingy, and what were you supposed to get a baby anyway? – or Snape (though here, at least, he knew that _expensive_ was not the way to go, unless he wanted to be treated to a rancorous monologue hailing his 'magnanimity').

Eventually, Luna helped him pick a set of magic blocks for Teddy, and a plush whale that spouted colourful bubbles. Then, they went to the fancy chocolate store Harry had only been inside once, when he and Ron had been looking for something to get Hermione when she'd passed the Apparition test, and Luna almost immediately zeroed in on a box of pralines shaped like potion ingredients. Harry, who had scavenged Snape's kitchen the last time he'd been in Spinner's End and found evidence to the man at least not _minding_ chocolate, thought these looked absolutely disgusting and that Snape would find the choice decidedly unfunny. They settled on a box of chocolate cauldrons instead, each glinting with filling coloured to resemble a specific potion, from Pepper-Up through Laughing Potion to Polyjuice; Harry only hoped they tasted better than their models.

He had thought the excursion would lift his spirits, and it had, briefly, until he was saying Merry Christmas to Luna and apparating back to London, and then suddenly his stomach was sinking, his throat closing up, every last trace of elated energy dissipating, and he was feeling infinitely worse than he had in the morning.

He had promised himself he would call Dudley today. It was ridiculous, really: for all that the Dursleys were and were not, he had known them longer than he'd known anyone in his life, and he had not asked after them or attempted to let them know what was going on in over a year. He hadn't spoken to his family in over a year.

They were back in Privet Drive now, he knew. He could have dropped by. He could have at least come and asked them if they were okay, and told them he was living in London, and that the evil wizard who'd been terrorising them was dead; they would have been told by Dedalus, sure, but Harry knew they trusted the word of other wizards even less than they trusted Harry's.

Now, it was nearing ten and he still hadn't called, and it was already too late; and he wouldn't be able to call tomorrow, either, because while they might have been pleased to hear the news today, they would certainly not enjoy having their Christmas celebrations interrupted by a phone call from Harry Potter.

He'd been looking at the Marauder's Map, but it lay abandoned now on the pillow, and he'd taken to fiddling with the pocket knife he'd unearthed from a drawer instead, snapping it open and shut, open and shut, and running his finger along the dull edge of the cold blade. The knife seemed to have no magical qualities whatsoever, and on close examination he'd found a Muggle trademark inlaid into the handle. He wondered whether it was the same knife used to engrave the words _Regulus has a small cock_ in the corner of the headboard. Harry might have questioned whether this was in good taste, if not for knowing the sheer terror of everything that would come to befall the two boys who'd once rowed in this house, and the innocence of this old insult made him giggle, and made his chest ache.

Though most students had left for the holidays, black dots were still milling about the map, and Harry had found solace in watching them go about their evenings. But Colin Creevey's dot was absent. Dumbledore wasn't ambling his office. Hermione, Luna and Neville were all with their families, but not being able to see them either had made Harry nervous.

For a while, he had watched Flitwick patrolling the corridors, and Hagrid letting Fang out for the final stroll of the day. Then, he'd looked for Draco's dot, until he located it in the Slytherin dormitories, moving about the space in what were likely night-time ablutions. When Hermione had left the castle for Christmas, Harry ordered Kreacher to stay in Hogwarts and keep an eye on Draco. Hermione had told him about the hostility among the student body: there had been several cases by now of broken bones and nasty hexes, and Draco Malfoy was uniquely positioned to attract wrath from every faction. News of the two of them not sitting together in the library anymore had spread, and with the dwindling sense he was under Hermione's aegis, and with the school deserted, Harry had little expectation Draco Malfoy would see much peace this holiday season.

He wasn't sure why he even cared. On principle, certainly, because he'd never condone violence of this kind; but ideological disagreement did not equal sending your house elf on an undercover mission, and it was not as if he could say he was looking out for Hermione's friends, either, after they'd fallen out rather spectacularly not two weeks ago. He supposed he'd felt a strange sense of obligation: not for anything Draco had done for him, but because Harry had been there for the trial of each of the three Malfoys, and though he'd not exchanged more than a passing glance with Draco, he was confident he had made an impression. Draco would be in his forties by the time his father left Azkaban. Harry had made sure of that.

It might not have been unrelated, either, that he'd spent several afternoons of late in the presence of Severus Snape, Master Extraordinaire of Holding a Grudge, and it had driven him to make a promise to himself that, should there ever be a Malfoy Junior, Harry would be perfectly kind to him no matter how much of a pompous prick he undoubtedly turned out to be. He had never thought about it much when he was younger, both accepting and perhaps fearing Snape's intense dislike of anything James Potter, but now he found the whole thing pathetic, and he had no wish to become a sad man dwelling on old animosities because he had nothing better to be doing with his life.

He hoped Kreacher was doing a better job than he had the last time Harry had set him on Draco. There was no way of telling since the map did not show house elves. He wondered whether that was simply because the Marauders did not much care, or if it had to do with house elves' unique brand of magic rendering them somehow unplottable. He'd never thought of it before. He hadn't thought of many things, actually, and now, there was no one left alive to ask.

 _Shut up_ , he told himself as his grip tightened reflexively on the knife, and a finger slipped, sliding against the sharp blade. A fat drop of blood bloomed on the tip of his index. He cursed, then tried to suck it dry, but the nick would not close properly; he didn't wish to drip blood over Sirius's bed, so he accio'd the Calamity Draught from the bathroom. He'd not had much need for it since Snape had provided the vial, but had used a few drops when he'd nicked himself shaving.

The cut closed within seconds, now a little crusty with fresh scabbing. Harry smiled. He'd been around magic long enough that sometimes he seemed to forget how incredible it was.

He needed to think on happier topics, he reflected, idly picking the knife up again. Tomorrow morning, he would send out his presents, and bake something to contribute to Mrs Weasley's Christmas Dinner extravaganza. She had extended an invitation to every last member of the Order, and though some had politely declined in favour of spending the holiday with families, they all knew, though did not say it, that many others had little family left. Hagrid would be there, and Hestia Jones and Bill and Fleur, and Ginny and Ron and all the Weasleys; Sturgis Podmore had promised to show and Dedalus Diggle to bring home-brew firewhiskey.

Harry also knew who would decidedly _not_ be there: he had told Snape when he last saw him the previous week that he should come along, and Snape had said it held no interest to him, and then Harry had asked him whether sitting home all night and drinking to forget held interest, or if he'd planned on some other activity. They'd argued quite severely, to the point of Snape saying a number of choice things about Harry's character, and Harry telling Snape to his face he thought he was a sad, lonely man and too much of a coward to even try and better his circumstances. He was subsequently invited to leave.

He had fretted over the row for a few days, and even felt guilty once the anger had dissipated, but rationally, he was fairly confident that Snape would choose to act as if nothing had happened once the holidays had passed, and Harry would soon be back to chopping disgusting things and taking notes that Snape could have spelled to take themselves. It was hard to worry about the impact of one argument when they quarrelled most times they were in each other's company, yet chose still to let their resentments simmer on the backburner, and never sever the tentative truce.

Andromeda would be there. She would bring Teddy. Harry had not spoken with her once. He had not asked after his godson a single time since his parents died. Sometimes, the shame of it burned so bright within him that he couldn't breathe. He dared not imagine what she must think of him.

***

Harry drew the blade over the pink patch of skin on the tip of his middle finger. He wanted to see the potion work its magic again, and there was something incredibly satisfying about cutting a clear line and watching the pooling blood: once he'd administered the draught again, he thought the scab looked rather appealing, too, and resisted the urge to scratch at it.

The problem was, Harry thought as he drew the knife over the crook of his palm, the pain sharper now and harder to swallow around, that this was not what life had been supposed to be. Part of him had always believed he would not live to see the day Voldemort had been defeated, but another part had fantasised about it in quiet moments. He had imagined excursions into Hogsmeade, surrounded by his friends and unafraid of danger lurking in darkened alleys. He and Ginny would have taken a holiday together – Harry had never travelled, so she would decide where to go – and once they'd both finished Hogwarts, and Harry and Ron had got onto the Auror's programme together, they would have bought a house, something cosy and with plenty of ground to play Quidditch. Once Teddy had grown a little, they could have him over some weekends, and Harry would have taught him to fly; he would have been a better godfather than Sirius ever could, because he would never desert Teddy, never leave him to fend for himself, never fail to ascertain that his grandmother treated him well.

Harry had moved on from his palms to his forearms, unwilling to risk leaving visible scabs where he could not cover them with shirt sleeves: with George the way he'd been lately, Merlin knew what Mrs Weasley would have thought. Harry had no desire to add onto her worries, or to have to explain himself if anyone jumped to conclusions.

The knife was sharp and cut smooth, so what pain he did feel was nothing, really. The point of the exercise was not pain, but the flare of satisfaction he felt at the perfection of the lines, and how they would crust over when swathed in Calamity Draught. It had taken nearly a minute for the potion to close up one of the larger cuts. Watching the process in slow-motion was hypnotising.

He cut again, deeper this time, just below one wrist, and then the other for symmetry. The potion had to fight against the diluting power of the oozing blood, so he poured more out, and watched. How indolent, how bored and useless did he have to be, to take to such extremes of entertainment?

Nothing from his old imaginings had come true. He couldn't help but feel this was his fault and his alone. After all, he had been supposed to be _happy_ : and he couldn't even manage that much.

Blood was still flowing freely. If anything, the rivulets had grown in width and taken on a darker hue; suddenly embarrassed by quite how far he'd gone, Harry quickly poured the rest of the draught out, positively bathing his wrists in glittery silver. It foamed some around the wounds, the very edges beginning to harden, but then more blood was spilling forth, and Harry was at once aware of a wetness on his stomach and thighs, where his pyjamas had been soaked red.

He leaped off the bed, feverishly trying to bundle his arms into the already stained pyjama top so that they did not drip over the mattress or the floor. It was no use: the first drop fell heavy on his bare foot, the second on the wooden panel, and the covers of Sirius's bed were already painted crimson.


	9. December 24th, 1998 (II)

**December 24th, 1998 (II).**

Harry wasn't bleeding _that_ much.

Granted, he was bleeding significantly more than he'd ever intended to, and the sight of his pyjama bottoms stained a deep red was making him nauseous, and he nearly swooned on the stairs, knocking into the wall and leaving behind a very dramatic smudge. But the thought of going to St. Mungo's, though it flashed in his mind, was preposterous: there were surely people queuing even now with much more serious conditions, and the only reason Harry couldn't fix the damage himself was an ignorance of healing magic that would have likely been remedied if only he'd bothered to actually _finish school._

He stood in front of the fireplace for a full minute, cycling through his options. He could go to Hogwarts, where Madame Pomfrey would surely have some empty beds to offer, but he'd need special dispensation to Floo into the castle and he had no idea how to go about getting one at eleven p.m. on Christmas Eve. There was no way he could apparate into Hogsmeade and make it on foot, not to mention that he had no desire to come across idle students roaming the corridors. Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World, bleeding onto his pyjamas because he'd forgotten that knives were sharp.

What if he'd walked into Draco? He would never live it down. He would never, _ever_ , be able to look _anyone_ in the eye again.

Thinking of Draco reminded him of Kreacher, but he dismissed the idea quickly: he wasn't sure how much healing magic house elves wielded, and was otherwise convinced that the elf would have had a heart attack upon seeing him like this. Harry could not deal with anyone else freaking out right now, because then he'd lose it, too. That meant no Burrow either. He couldn't do that to Mrs Weasley.

He found himself accio'ing the store-wrapped box of chocolate cauldrons. It was the unlikely choice, but the last remaining alternative. If Snape thought his big promise to protect Harry had expired with Voldemort's demise, he had another thing coming; and it had _kind of_ been his fault, too, since he'd given Harry the Calamity Draught in the first place. He would be displeased with the interruption, and think him an idiot, but at least Harry would not be giving anyone cardiac arrest tonight.

He threw a fistful of Floo powder into the fireplace, stepped in before he could change his mind, and called out, 'Spinner's End.'

He fell face-forward until he was sprawled on the old rug in Snape's sitting room, pondering whether or not he was going to throw up, his vision so overcome with black dots that he could barely make out the figure that appeared in the doorway. He could tell it was pointing a wand at him, though.

'Potter?'

Harry rose, blinking furiously to clear out the dizzy. Snape stood in a dark-green robe, his hair hanging in wet, heavy hanks – so he _did_ wash it sometimes, Harry thought –, his wand now lowered to his side, and an expression so devoid of emotion on his face that he almost seemed inhuman.

'Evening, sir,' Harry tried for politeness. He saw himself suddenly through Snape's eyes: old pyjamas soaked in blood, arms marked by scabs and cuts and two very suspicious open wounds, a Giant Squid pendant on his neck, bare feet fast-growing purple, and the small box clutched to his chest, wrapped in laughing Santa Clauses that seemingly had no notion they were now smudged with crimson. He did not think he had ever felt as ridiculous in his entire life, and wanted immediately to take it all back, to make the last hour disappear, or reset the day completely.

As quickly as it came, the feeling was shuffled away when Snape started forward, and grabbed Harry by the shoulders and was pushing him, now, down onto the sofa, and Harry's vision was doubling, but he did see with absolute clarity the spark of fear in Snape's eyes. Harry had to close his. He swallowed heavily, then realised he had been terrified all along, only he'd had no idea until this moment.

For a time, Harry was nothing but a blur of sensation. Heart, stuttering over panic. Breath, hitching faster and shorter. Arms so numb he did not think he could move a single digit. The skin on his thighs and stomach blossomed in goose bumps as the blood grew cold. Snape did not speak and Harry could not see what he was doing, but he was a rush of air above him, and droplets of water on Harry's face when he leaned over. A vial of something or other was pressed against Harry's lips and he swallowed obediently, and then again, fighting to get it all down despite his throat closing up: the potions spilled over the corners of his mouth, flowing down his cheeks and mingling with tears.

His faculties returned gradually, as if he were waking from a deep sleep. First, he became aware of the crackling of the fire, and the sound of Snape's breathing close to his ear. Second, he tried experimentally to clench his fingers, and they went where he wanted them, though would not have been able to hold anything securely, and sent a blinding wave of pins and needles up his arms.

He opened his eyes. His head was resting at a slight angle, propped up rather uncomfortably by the armrest, and he had a good view of the room, the vials lying broken or knocked over on the coffee table, and Snape sat on the floor by the side of the sofa, his fingers pressing painfully into Harry's wrist as he seemed to feel for pulse.

When their eyes met, Snape jerked his hand away.

'Tell me, Potter,' he croaked, and it sounded different from every other time he'd said it, 'do you think that I, and countless other wizards and witches, spent the last eighteen years working ourselves to the ground to ensure your safety from external threat, just so you could have the luxury of putting _yourself_ out of your misery?'

Harry was not convinced his next breath would come at all, but when it did, he had to let it out into the back of his hand, to stop it making an awful noise. Bandages spanned his forearms, and he used them to rub at his face, gathering up the tears and potion residue.

'It's not what it looks like,' he explained. 'I wasn't trying to—I didn't mean to hurt myself at all. I was just—'

' _It's not what it looks like?_ ' Snape seethed, and there was a yell buried in his rough voice, and Harry knew it would come out if he kept on, so he tried to impede him,

'It's not! It's not what you're thinking at all, I was just playing around—'

'You come into my house in the middle of the night, drenched in blood and on the cusp of collapse, and you have the _temerity_ to pretend this was an accident?!' Snape yelled, pushing himself to his feet in a motion so sudden it made Harry dizzy.

'Well, I wouldn't have come if I knew you'd freak out so much,' Harry remarked sensibly.

'Why in _Merlin's name_ have you come at all? What possessed you to for a moment think that I, out of the entire human population, should be your first choice for personal medic?'

'You're not my first choice for anything!' Harry shouted back, scooting up to sit properly, anger heavy in his gut. 'I just had nowhere else to go!'

For an uncomfortable moment, Snape only stared at him.

'What is wrong with you?' he asked finally, tone dipping into a near whisper. 'You are surrounded by people who have proven themselves willing to lay down their life for you, you have more friends than most would dare dream of, you have a family who have miraculously lived through the war, and that is not enough for you? And you manage to find fault with that, too, so you can wallow in your loneliness? Just what exactly is _wrong with you_ , Potter?'

'What is wrong with _you_?!' Harry screamed, trying and failing to pull himself up to his feet. 'My family _hate_ me, which you would know if you thought about it for a single second, God, I have no idea _how_ anyone as blind as you ever managed to be a spy! Where was I supposed to go? To Mrs Weasley, to give her a helpful visual of what it would look like if George ever actually went through with it, which, he's _actually_ s—suicidal and I'm _not,_ like I've been trying to tell you—'

He'd managed to stand up but swayed on his feet, nausea overcoming his senses; Snape's hands shot out to hold him up, but he jerked himself away: he could think of nothing more repulsive than letting the man touch him right now.

'And if you're so convinced, then what the hell are you doing _yelling at me_ first thing, if you really think that I—that I would actually—'

'I don't know!' Snape bellowed. 'I don't know what to tell you! You should not have come to _me_ , of all the stupid things—'

'Well, don't worry, I'm going to remedy that mistake,' Harry turned toward the fireplace. He grasped a handful of Floo powder from the mantle; half of it slipped between his weakened fingers and spilled over the rug. He knew his voice was shaking something horrid, but he'd embarrassed himself more than enough already, so it hardly mattered. 'I promise I won't be disturbing you again.'

'Do _not_ step into that fireplace.'

'Goodnight, sir,' Harry said, putting as much vitriol into the words as he could wrench from the coil of shame in his chest. Then, he stepped into the fireplace. He could block it from the other side, he thought to himself, in case Snape got some ridiculous notion into his head to follow: he'd have to be quick about it, but Hermione had taught him the spell when he'd first moved in. 'Your Christmas present's somewhere in the pool of blood on the floor, I think. Maybe you should fish it out.'

' _Harry_ ,' Snape said, and on that word, his voice broke. If he dared look him in the eye, Harry knew something would break in him, too; so instead, he loosened his fingers and whispered, 'Grimmauld Place.'


	10. December 25th, 1998

**December 25th, 1998.**

A boundary into adulthood had been crossed, Ginny thought as she watched her mother berate Ron on his plating technique. Christmas had once been snow fights and presents and tears when Fred and George invariably pulled one prank too many, and she had loved it with an alacrity shared by most children. This year, she was just stressed.

So far, she had argued with Ron, over whether or not Hermione could handle herself against Mum's attempts at having her play third hostess (she clearly could not, and shouldn't _have to_ was the point); with Bill, over a perfectly innocent joke she'd made about Fleur's dress (how was it Ginny's fault the woman dressed like she was queen of nothing?); with Percy over something she couldn't remember anymore; and with Mum, thrice, about Hermione and about Harry and about the potatoes. It hadn't been about any of these things, really. They would have argued about the placement of the Christmas tree, or about what shade of blue the sky was.

'Do you need help with anything?' Harry murmured into her left ear. He had arrived an hour prior and had already suffered a lecture from Mum: she had wanted him to come by last night, and spend all of the holidays, and could not understand why he steadfastly refused. 'I mean, he's family,' she'd told Ginny, bewildered. 'You should be with family on Christmas.'

Ginny hadn't pointed out that family didn't normally feel compelled to bring a food offering every time they visited, and weren't told to sit and rest when everyone else buzzed around the kitchen. Christmas was, after all, a time for wishful thinking.

'Nah,' she shook her head. Salad dressing was hardly the most challenging of responsibilities. Mum hadn't thought she could be trusted with anything else.

A door opened somewhere, and excited voices flew down the corridor into the kitchen. Mum startled and rushed out, face morphing from censure into a welcoming smile. 'You're not going after her?' Ron asked Ginny. 'Isn't catching dragons your whole thing now?'

Ginny and George both laughed. Hermione, who was spelling napkins into origami hippogriffs by the table, smirked. Harry was visibly uncomfortable, like he usually seemed when anyone made a joke at Mum's expense. Family, Ginny thought to herself mockingly. Right.

'You know what she got me for Christmas?' Ron turned to Hermione and Harry. George and Ginny exchanged an exasperated look, having heard the story twice already. ' _Practical Household Magic_ , new and extended edition. And she's underlined "her favourite spells"! The Ministry job's got into her head, it has. She's feeling important enough for a house elf now, but she's too stingy to buy one, so she's going to make one instead!'

'At least it's useful,' Hermione shrugged. 'You're going to need to know these spells once you've moved out.'

'When I move out, we're stealing Kreacher. Or, wait, we're just going to be super rich and get our own house elf.'

'Oh, who's the _we_ you're talking about, then?' Hermione quirked an eyebrow. 'Because surely you don't expect that I'll be purchasing a slave with you?'

'I sense trouble in paradise,' George intoned in a sing-a-song voice. 'Save it for the guests, guys. Oh, I think old Podmore might have a house elf, make sure to call him out on that, too,' he rubbed his hands together, throwing a wink Ginny's way. 'We wouldn't want dinner to get boring, would we?'

Ginny smiled at him. When she'd got to England a few days ago, she could see already the weight of the holidays settled on his shoulders, and the tremor in his hands; but he'd been trying very hard to counteract Mum's coldness and make her feel welcome. She wanted to tell him he wasn't the only reason she and Mum had fallen out, that he shouldn't feel responsible, that she missed Fred to tears every afternoon on Saturday, his favourite day of the week, but that she missed him, George, more often than that. Every day, maybe. She didn't know how to say any of it. They didn't have that kind of relationship. She didn't have that kind of relationship with anyone, Ginny thought. Maybe except for with Mum, once.

'On the subject of rubbish presents,' Hermione pulled a box out of the travel bag still resting at her feet, 'Draco's sent me these.'

'Ooh, pretty!' Ginny promptly abandoned the dressing to pick up the earrings and examine them in the light. They were large ruby drops held in diamond-studded cages, with silver intricately webbed around the gems.

'Do you want them?' Hermione asked acerbically. 'I don't have pierced ears.'

'Red's not really my colour,' Ginny said, flicking a strand of hair to aid her point. 'I could pierce them for you though, I know the spell.'

'I am _not_ piercing my ears for Draco Malfoy!' George, Ron and Ginny chortled, and even Harry had to turn to hide his smile. 'What is he thinking? We're not even talking to one another, and he sends me jewels? How is that appropriate?'

'To be fair,' said Ron as he started wiping down the counter, 'that's kind of the done thing in these old pureblood families. Earrings, brooches, rings, any jewellery, they're all traditional Christmas presents for adult wizards. You're supposed to give them to family and friends. So like, I'm not saying he's not a git, but he probably meant it as some sort of, I don't know.'

'Oh, he meant it as an honour, did he?' Hermione spat. 'I should be honoured he considers me worthy of pureblood customs?'

'That's probably exactly what he meant,' Ron shrugged. 'Like I've said, I'm not saying it was a good idea. But if our family hadn't been piss-poor for generations, you could probably expect a few rubies from assorted Weasleys.'

'Wait, should I be doing that?' Harry chimed in suddenly. 'Should I be buying people jewellery?'

'They're old customs,' Ginny explained. 'If you wanted to be a traditionalist, then yes, but I'm sure there are plenty wizards who don't do this sort of thing anymore even if they can afford it.'

'That's another thing!' Hermione exclaimed. 'How _did_ he afford it? Hadn't they seized pretty much everything off the Malfoys?'

'No way they did,' Ron said immediately. 'Everything they could _find,_ probably. But they would have had gold shoved into secret hiding spots Merlin knows where, or old grandma Malfoy's cursed diamonds or what have you.'

'Harry, love, come along now!' Mum reappeared in the doorway, promptly grabbing Harry by the elbow and jerking him off-balance. He gave a wince of pain that took Ginny by surprise. She met his eyes, hoping he would see the question, but he looked away quickly. 'Dedalus is very keen to see you, and Andromeda's just arrived now, I frankly don't know what to talk to her about. Come, come. Ginny, hurry up with the dressing, will you?'

If anything, Harry's distress grew, and Ginny caught him sending a panicked glance at Hermione. It gave her a stupid jolt of jealousy when she immediately rose and offered to come with. She did her best to stomp it down. There was nothing odd about Harry seeking aid from his best friend rather than Ginny. They weren't even together anymore, she didn't think. How many months without a letter before you concluded the relationship officially dissolved?

Once they'd left, the kitchen dipped into an uncomfortable silence. When Harry and Hermione were there, it was easier to pretend they weren't missing someone. Now, it was evident even in the way they stood. When Ron sank into a chair, he left a place empty by George's side.

'Have to say, I thought you'd be more up in airs about this,' George said, tapping on the little box Hermione had left behind.

'Why, because it's jewellery? Or because it's expensive?'

'Both, either, I don't know.'

'Mate, my girlfriend is best friends with Harry Bloody Potter,' Ron laughed. 'If I can get over that, then I'm not going to worry about Draco Malfoy.'

'Very mature,' Ginny nodded seriously. 'Now read up on how to do the dishes, and you'll be _Witch Weekly_ 's boyfriend of the year.'

Ron flipped her the finger without looking, to which George reacted with a theatrical gasp. For a moment, Ginny wanted to never go back to Romania.

When they joined the party a little over half an hour later, it was in full swing: Dad was showing Dedalus and Sturgis 'a keyboard, it makes letters and words appear, but for the life of me I can't figure out where!'; Charlie, Percy, Bill and Fleur were fast getting drunk on moonshine; Mum was trying to transfigure a chair that wouldn't break under Hagrid's weight; and Hermione and Harry were on the carpet by the fire, explaining to a wide-eyed Teddy the concept of a pig. The pig herself had been let inside when it started snowing. Ginny had expected Mum to kick up a fuss, but it seemed every member of her family was secretly enamoured with the beast.

Dear Fred, she composed in her mind. How is afterlife treating you? Everyone here is doing fine. It seems we've found a replacement for you. I'm sorry to tell you that her _oink_ is much nicer than yours ever was.

Harry petted the pig's snout with an open palm, exclaiming an encouragement as Teddy copied him. The pig made a rough sound and leaned in, always greedy for attention, and the baby squealed. Harry and Hermione both laughed. Ginny's lungs contracted. She tried to imagine what it would be like to stay. She used to picture a future where she and Harry lived in a house much like the Burrow but nicer, with a family of squealing children much like her brothers but less annoying, and she had known then they were silly fantasies but had found them amusing nevertheless. As hard as she tried now, she couldn't accurately remember the shape of a single one.

'Well, it seems everyone is here, so let's go ahead and start dinner, shall we?' Mum shouted through the bustle of voices. 'If everyone could take a seat—oh, Andromeda, dear, if you could sit right over here, I've transfigured a highchair for our little darling—'

Just as they shuffled to obey, a knock came on the door. Mum froze for a split second, her eyes meeting Dad's over the table, then rushed to answer. Ginny wondered if Mum had felt what she did: that hope, for half a breath, that Fred was only late.

'—pleasant surprise,' Mum's voice drifted up the corridor.

'I apologise for running late,' a voice murmured in response.

'Oh no, not at all, dear. We were just about to sit down for dinner, you're right on time.'

When she returned with Snape in tow, a trickle of surprise went through the room, but was quickly swept aside to make room for polite if stilted greetings. They were all so busy covering up their bewilderment that none seemed to notice that Harry stood frozen. The quiet ease of before had slipped, and underneath Ginny glimpsed the thing she had sensed all evening but could not put her finger on: a strange, cold sort of rawness, like Harry had been through a long illness and had only just emerged from the haze of fever.

She found herself sitting between Fleur and the unexpected guest, which she assumed was another one of Mum's designs in casual revenge. Dad had spotted her quandary and chivalrously took up the seat to the right of Snape's, soon engaging him in a one-sided conversation on 'those blasted Muggle electronicses.' Snape made a genuine effort to appear to be at least half-listening, but it was very clear to Ginny his only interest sat across the table, trying so hard to avoid his old professor's eye that he barely looked when he ladled sauce onto his plate, and spilled much of it on his hippogriff napkin. The hippogriff hissed in discontent. Harry pinched its beak to shut it up.

There was too much food. Ginny soon grew sleepily full, lulled by Fleur's melodic accent as she told her about why Beauxbatons was better than Hogwarts. It sounded like a rehearsal of an argument she was anticipating with Bill: Ginny had heard they were already thinking of children. Fleur had always made her feel like she wasn't good at being a woman, and that she was glad she wasn't at all like her, and that she wished she could be; and Ginny wanted to have her life now, merrily planning a family with someone as attractive and funny as Bill, and she was glad she didn't have it.

'I'm gonna get some air,' George announced, rising to his feet. 'Pig needs a walk.'

The pig seemed content enough lounging by the fire, but Ginny wasn't about to claim insight into the animal's psyche. She exchanged a quick look with Ron and was about to announce she would come with, but Harry was faster. 'I fancy some air too,' he said. 'I need a break before dessert.'

Ginny couldn't decide whether sending off two emotionally unstable trauma survivors on a solitary walk at night was a better idea than sending one, so she grabbed her coat before either could argue. Judging by George's pinched expression, he knew he was being managed, but he kept his comments to himself.

He still walked a good ten feet ahead of the pair of them, holding the pig's leash in a tight grasp. It was drizzling snow, delicate flakes fluttering to rest gently on the stalks of winter wheat. The fields expanded toward the horizon like dark stains of ink. They held the sort of draw that oceans and night skies hold, and Ginny felt she could breathe deeper just by looking at them. By her side, Harry walked staring at his feet.

'How's Romania been?' he asked gently. Ginny felt suddenly impatient with him.

'Good,' she said. 'You've not written.'

'Sorry,' he lied. 'There wasn't much to write about anyway.'

'I worried about you when you didn't write.'

'Don't worry about me,' Harry still did not meet her eye. 'Honestly, I'll be fine. I don't want you to waste your time worrying. But I'm just not sure if I can promise I'll write—it's just hard for me. I don't know why.'

'Okay,' she said. For a moment, she listened to their footsteps crunching in the snow. 'I'm sorry,' she added, unsure what she was apologising for. 'You don't need to write if it's hard. Look, I understand that we're—that we're doing different things now, and it's not the same anymore, I don't know—but you know, I would have stayed if you'd asked me to.'

Harry scoffed. Ginny had to swallow around the desire to hit him. 'I would have,' she repeated.

'That's not something you should have to do,' he said with lingering amusement. 'And I would never ask you to do that, obviously. But even still, would you have? Be honest.'

Ginny thought about Romania. About the dragons, and the bed she and Charlie had transfigured out of an old sofa on what had felt like the twentieth try, and about going out drinking with Charlie's apprentice Mara. Then, she thought about Harry. She didn't want to say it.

Harry finally met her eyes. 'Please don't feel bad about it,' he asked. It sounded like a genuine plea. 'I don't think it would have helped anyway.'

The sadness she felt was instant and profound, and at least in part due to how anticlimactic it all was. She had dreamed of him since she was eleven. They hadn't been supposed to have an ending in the first place, but if it had to be, then surely they deserved something grander, something more tragic than this.

She cleared her throat, swallowing the tears. 'I'm still your friend,' she said firmly. 'I'm still going to worry about you. So if you want to write, or if you want me to write, or anything, then—you know. Right?'

'Yes,' Harry nodded. His breath was shaky and wet, which made her feel both better and worse. 'Friends.'

They walked for a good while after. Ginny told him about dragons and Romanian food, and he told her about doing Christmas shopping with Luna. After some time, she no longer had to act out her smiles.

Eventually, George decided the pig had got cold and so they turned back. When they could make out the lights of the Burrow through the evening fog, they saw a dark figure pushing through the night. Ginny knew she was paranoid but stepped a little in front of Harry just in case, hand on her wand. But it was only Snape.

'You're expected back inside,' he told them. 'Your mother wishes to serve dessert.'

It was bizarre seeing him here like this, sans cloak or the backdrop of cauldrons and blackboards. It was like meeting an entirely different person, Ginny thought, realising belatedly she'd never thought of teachers as people with inner lives, ones that weren't concerned with interhouse drama or poorly written essays. She had always known they must have had them, but it was a different thing to see it first-hand.

He walked a step behind Harry, like a gloomy bodyguard, the tension between them palpable. Ginny wondered what had happened. There was no way of asking now.

'I was hoping to run another trial after the holidays,' Snape said to him. 'The brew is ready and I would prefer to test it as soon as you return to Grimmauld Place.'

'Sure,' Harry said shortly. 'I'll be back tomorrow morning.'

'Very well. Shall we say eleven?'

'Fine.'

'Are you feeling well?'

'Just cold,' Harry shrugged. He'd wrapped his arms around his chest.

'That will be because this is a flimsy excuse for a coat,' Snape grabbed suddenly at his collar and jerked it over to read the label. 'If you have to go and buy a Muggle garment, maybe you could consider spending more than fifteen pounds on it.'

'It was twenty ninety-nine, actually,' Harry quipped. 'On sale.'

'Once they reopen stores, you will make some use of your considerable fortune and get yourself a real coat lined with a heating spell. Tuesday, I think.'

'Yes, mother,' Harry drawled, but the corner of his mouth had lifted a little.

On the porch, George held them up as he attempted a wide selection of spells to clean the snow and mud off the pig. Ginny lowered herself into the rocking chair: she had seen him at this yesterday. It took a while.

'Dare I ask about the pig?' Again, Snape spoke loudly enough that they could all hear, but somehow it was clear he'd been talking to Harry alone.

'It's an emotional support pig,' Harry recited George's usual answer. 'You should get yourself one, sir. George says they're very good.'

'That they are,' George echoed with a grin. 'I can hook you up with a good deal, Professor.'

'It seems to me it would be less of a support and more of a nuisance.'

'Nuisance,' George repeated. 'That's genius.'

'Excuse me?'

'We've been looking for a name. Can't keep calling her pig because that's Ron's owl. But Nuisance is perfect, isn't it?'

'It is,' Ginny confirmed. 'Thank you, Professor.'

'I'm honoured to serve,' Snape said sourly. Feeling brave and more than a little off kilter, she winked at him. Immediately, she felt mortified, and kicked at George, who'd noticed and started laughing. Thankfully, Snape didn't see anything. Though he'd been answering Ginny, his eyes had been on Harry, and marked only the roll of his eyes.

Dinner had been cleared off the table by the time they reclaimed their seats. Harry dropped his twenty ninety-nine coat on the bench by the door and rushed to the kitchen to help serve the pear and pecan pie he'd brought with him; Dad went to intercept a drunk and teary Percy before he reached Andromeda, who was lulling Teddy to sleep on the couch; Fleur explained to Ginny she couldn't have a single thing more or she would burst like a balloon.

Harry returned with his pie and a polka-dotted knife. Ginny took a piece, and Ron and Hermione both did, and George and Hagrid, and Snape had no real way of refusing as Ron simply grabbed the plate from in front of him and passed it over. When Harry disappeared back into the kitchen to help with the tea, which was not going well judging by the crash and muted curse – should Ginny care? She didn't –, Ron inserted himself into the empty seat to Snape's right.

'Hey,' he said. It sounded odd and he knew it. 'So look, I'm going to be straight with you. For some unknown reason, Harry's really into you these days.'

Snape stayed silent. Ginny didn't blame him, herself surprised into stock-still muteness.

'I don't know why he suddenly cares what you think after you've spent years treating him like he's not even worth the boot you're kicking with, but he does. So, I'm warning you now, when he comes back in, you'd better tell him this is the best pie you've ever had in your life, or I will punch you at my first opportunity. And I will remind you that half my family are high-ranking Ministry officials now, so you will let me, too. Do you get what I'm trying to say?'

Ginny stared down at her plate, too mortified to chance a look at Snape's face. Ron's voice had been soft; she sincerely hoped no one else had overheard.

To her right, Snape cleared his throat. 'I understand your meaning, Mr Weasley.'

'Great,' said Ron, the taut gone from his voice. She could tell he was finally growing shy, and would have bet anything his ears were red.

They were saved by further attempts at conversation with Harry's return, who had sidled himself into his seat and grabbed a slice of cheesecake. 'Tea catastrophe just needed a bit of Chosen One magic,' he grinned.

No one laughed. Harry's eyes scanned the scene before him, eyebrows knitting in confusion. 'How's the pie?' he asked with nervous dread, like he'd already identified the problem but hoped to be proven wrong. Ginny quickly pushed a forkful into her mouth and gave him a smile.

'It's delicious,' she said.

'I hope you've made enough for seconds, mate,' Ron volunteered.

'It's very good,' Snape confirmed. In his voice, it sounded like much higher praise, and Ginny felt herself relax in a single exhale.

Mum chose this moment to execute her signature move and entangle herself in a situation they had already managed themselves. 'Everyone's had Harry's pie?' her eyes were jumping as she counted the plates. 'Fleur, dear, have some of Harry's pie.'

' _Ah ben_ , I am trying to watch my weight,' Fleur said. 'You understand, Harry.'

'Oh yeah, sure, don't worry about it—'

'Surely you could have a slice,' Mum pressed. 'Ginny, get Fleur a slice.'

Ginny was torn between opposing desires. Eventually, bitterness with everything Fleur represented won over and she shoved a slice onto her plate. Or maybe she wanted to remember what it felt like to be a unified front.

Fleur looked at her pie like it pained her. Ginny attacked her own, imagining Fleur's face in it.

'And how is Romania?' Fleur was playing for time. 'I remember it's hard at the start, living away, far from your family.'

Ginny had never thought about it, but she supposed they did have some things in common after all. 'It's different,' she admitted. 'And hard and exciting, but also not as hard or exciting as everyone seems to expect.'

'That's a very good description,' Fleur commended. 'But you have to, what's the word, keep at it? People who stay, they can't understand it. It changes you when you leave, no?'

'I'm not sure _I_ can understand it. I don't know why I have this need to leave everything behind. I don't know if it's healthy to want to go off and become someone completely different.'

Fleur hummed in thought. 'Sometimes you have to become completely different, I think,' she said finally. 'Because maybe that's who you are supposed to be, yes?'

'Maybe,' Ginny looked at her mother. She was laughing at a joke Bill was telling her. When she marked her gaze, a tiny twitch ran through her features. It suddenly occurred to Ginny that the things she did and said, and maybe the things she was, now, were making Mum uncomfortable.

She diverted her eyes to look at Fleur's plate instead. 'You want to split that?' she asked.

' _S'il te plaît,_ ' said Fleur.


	11. December 26th, 1998

**December 26th, 1998.**

Harry woke with a headache from here to a few streets over, like a taut skein of string endlessly pulled at by the light from the window, the scratch of the blankets, the honking of an impatient driver, the volume of the sneeze he let out right before the groan, by _everything._ It took him a moment of lying in utter misery to recognize the tell-tale sounds that he was not home alone, drifting gently from downstairs but amplified by his migraine until they were grating and distinguishable.

Kreacher was still at Hogwarts. When he was leaving the Burrow around three a.m. last night, he'd left all of the Weasleys and Hermione either in a drunken stupor or boneless from exhaustion or both, and he did not expect that any of them would be up until afternoon. They had no reason to invade Grimmauld Place.

He pulled his wand and glasses out of the tumbled mess that was yesterday's clothing, and stalked down the stairs, heart beating painfully in his ears.

The sounds were coming from the kitchen. He didn't hex Snape, but it was a near thing.

'Jesus,' he cursed, then leaned against the doorframe to catch his breath. 'You scared me, sir. What are you doing here so early?'

Snape turned away from the hob, eyebrow raised almost off his forehead. 'It is past twelve o'clock, Potter.'

'Oh.'

Not knowing what to do with himself, and because he'd spotted an aromatic pot of coffee on the table, Harry slunk down to the bench and accio'd himself a cup. Coffee sounded much better than the prospect of going up to the bathroom and seeing exactly what state he'd been in when he appeared downstairs.

A handful of parched sips later, a plate stacked with fried eggs, bacon and toast appeared in front of him. Snape had sat himself down opposite Harry with his own portion of food, apparently unwilling to engage with the fact he was being extremely odd.

'You've made me hangover breakfast,' Harry remarked carefully. 'You realise that's like, really nice, don't you?'

'I have little desire to converse with a drunk teenager. Eat.'

'I'm not _drunk_ ,' Harry protested. 'I didn't even have that much. And you're having hangover breakfast, too.'

'I'm having _lunch_ , Potter.'

With every bite, the clink of cutlery became less aggravating; but as the fog in Harry's mind cleared, the silence took on shape. Snape should have been angry over having to wait on Harry, but he'd made him breakfast instead. This indicated lingering guilt over the Christmas Eve incident. He had thought Snape had got over that via his grand gesture of deigning to show up to last night's dinner and playing nice with Harry's friends, and that they would now return to the status quo of discussing only experimental brews and Harry's abysmal slicing technique, and pretend Christmas Eve hadn't happened this year. He was not sure he was quite ready to forgive and forget, but Snape had known to ask him for invitation to Grimmauld Place with Ginny and George there to hear, so he'd felt pressured to extend the offer, and well, fine, if Snape cared so much, Harry would do his best to pretend everything was dandy. As long as they didn't talk about it, he could maybe swallow down the shame and hurt, and they could both just get on with it.

But Snape's new attitude was not remotely status quo. Which meant Snape wasn't over it. He wasn't even putting on a particularly good show of being over it. If he went as far as to ask to speak about Christmas Eve, Harry decided that he would politely excuse himself to the bathroom, pack a bag and then flee the country. He would live out the rest of his days on a desert island in the Pacific, or in a particularly cold bit of Siberia, or somewhere else he was unlikely to be found again.

Once the food was gone, Snape banished the plates to the sink, pulled out his leather case, and circled the table to sit astride the bench at Harry's side. 'Turn,' he instructed, gesturing to clarify he wanted Harry to straddle the bench and face him. Harry resolutely stared at the buttons of Snape's shirt, but did as he was asked, and extended the hand scarred with Umbridge's missive.

But Snape ignored it completely in favour of pulling at the bandages looped loosely around Harry's arms – he'd meant to take them off last night to check on the cuts, but fell asleep before he'd got round to it – and began to administer a greenish potion to the closed wounds, produced from inside the case that Harry only now realised wasn't the usual one.

'These aren't Dark Arts scars,' Harry said. 'And that's not the new brew.'

'How observant.'

'I thought you said you were coming to trial the new brew.'

'I lied, obviously,' Snape admitted easily. 'I had little desire to start an argument about this in the presence of your friends, and judging by your recent dramatics, I imagined that would have been unavoidable.'

Harry attempted to pull his arm away, but Snape caught his wrist firmly and kept it pinned in place. _Now_ who was being dramatic, Harry thought. The cuts had been deep, but they'd been closed by magic, and Harry was fairly certain they would have healed just fine if Snape would only leave them alone.

'I don't know what you think is going to happen,' he said through clenched teeth, 'but the last thing I fancy today, or any day, is talking to you about any of this.'

Snape didn't wince, exactly, but something like a spasm of anger went through his face. When he spoke, Harry could tell he was being very careful about keeping his tone even. 'I've brought you another dose of Blood Replenishing potion. You'll need to take Pepper-Up as well, since you've decided staying up until morning, binge drinking and wandering for hours without a coat are acceptable activities when convalescing from severe blood loss.'

Not for the first time, Harry wondered how Snape's tenuous link with reality allowed him to have ever been useful as a spy. 'First of all,' he said, 'I _had_ a coat—'

'Spare me. I need to clean these and redo the bandaging. Wound care potions aren't terribly effective when paired with alcohol.'

'Well, you could have told me that,' Harry pointed out. He couldn't decide whether he was angry with Snape or embarrassed with himself, and it was an unsettling combination. He counted the buttons in Snape's shirt, then again. If he concentrated, he could almost pretend this was okay, that he was being treated for something normal, like a Quidditch injury, or an attempt on his life by a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

The silence stretched. He racked his brains to come up with a neutral topic of conversation.

'Did you like the party?' he settled on finally. Either Snape would admit to having enjoyed himself, in which case Harry could get busy relishing the feeling of vindication, or he would expound on the suffering he'd been forced to endure, and then at least Harry could listen to that.

'It was pleasant,' Snape said.

The rush Harry felt was ridiculous. 'Told you.'

'I noticed the baby.'

That gave Harry pause. It took him a moment to figure out this was Snape's clumsy way of expressing curiosity, because Merlin forbid he be seen as interested in other people's lives. 'Oh, Teddy. He's Tonks' and Remus's son.'

Snape hummed in acknowledgement, like he'd expected as much. 'I see.'

Guessing that he might have liked to know more but was too socially inept to ask, Harry offered, 'Andromeda, I mean, Tonks' mum, she's taken him in. He'll be eight months old soon. He's a Metamorphmagus, too, which is really funny. He'll like, change his hair colour depending on his mood, and then when he was playing with Nuisance, he just turned it pink for a while—'

Snape's mouth twitched at the mention of the newly christened pig, which had been precisely Harry's goal.

'—and yeah. Remus made me his godfather. Which is kind of ironic. Almost feels like we're doomed to stand a shining example of history repeating itself.'

'Unless you are planning a stint in Azkaban any time soon, I should say there will be some variance to your experience.'

Harry felt a flare of old fury at hearing Snape refer to Sirius so casually, but he knew it wasn't worth it. 'He's not destined to kill a dark lord either as far as I know,' he quipped instead. 'At least, I hope not. Although then I might have something to contribute. I've offered to babysit and all, but I don't really know what I'm even supposed to do with a kid that young.'

Talking to Andromeda had been overly formal and uncomfortable, but she'd been encouraging about him building a relationship with her grandson and extended an open invitation several times over the course of the evening. 'I'm doing perfectly fine for now,' she'd told Harry when he'd offered to help out, 'but I'm thinking about the future, too. I can tell him plenty about Dora, but I never got a chance to properly know his father. It will be good for him to have someone he can trust, to tell him about what kind of man he was.'

Knowing he could go and see Teddy, knowing that he had Teddy, now, in whatever capacity, it made it just a little more important that Harry lived to see another day, and the day after that. Although he was decidedly _not_ anywhere near what Snape had deemed him on Christmas Eve, it felt nice still, to be reminded.

'If you are looking for advice on how to relate to a child, I'm afraid you are barking at the wrong tree, Mr Potter.'

Harry grinned. 'Wait, you mean to say you don't like children? I never would have guessed.'

Snape looked up from where he was wrapping up Harry's arm to give him a pronounced glare. The eye contact made Harry feel brave. 'Why did you stay at Hogwarts then? I mean, I know at first it was like, a spy thing, but then after Voldemort went off to lick at his pride for thirteen years, you could have gone to do something else, couldn't you?'

In lieu of answering, Snape directed him to scoot over so he could move on to his other arm. By the time he'd been quiet a good thirty seconds, Harry was ready to deem it a lost cause, so he was genuinely surprised when the man spoke.

'Initially, Albus would not have trusted me to leave his sight,' he said carefully, 'and I would not have trusted that the protection from the Ministry he provided would extend beyond the castle walls. Then, I suppose I had got used to it and was afraid of leaving to try and do anything else. Once I'd gained enough confidence to chance it, you were due at Hogwarts any day, and I wouldn't have been able to provide much protection from outside the castle.'

It was a much more revealing response than Harry could have expected, and for a while he didn't know what to do with this sudden sincerity. It also startled him to hear it stated plainly that Snape would have likely left Hogwarts if not for Harry. He should have suspected as much, but it was still bizarre to consider that he'd had such profound impact on the man's life without ever realising it. He supposed at this rate he owed an apology to the entirety of the Hogwarts population.

'You could have owled me, like, cryptic messages,' he said, fighting to get his head back on straight. ' _If you get poisoned, stuff a bezoar down your throat, Potter. Don't you dare go hunting trolls, Potter. Try not to die this month, Potter._ '

'Tremendously helpful.'

'Oh, I don't know, it might have been motivating to know that someone cared.'

Immediately, he felt heat rise to his cheeks. He hadn't got his head back on straight in time. Maybe he _was_ still drunk, if he could come up with such maudlin statements on the spot.

Thankfully, Snape seemed to be equally embarrassed by the unexpected admission and did not comment. He finished up Harry's arm, fed him the correct potions, and put everything away in silence.

Then, he did nothing. He didn't get up, he didn't say his goodbyes, he sat and looked nowhere in particular, with no clear intention any way.

After a painfully long while that could have lasted anything between a minute and three hours, Harry couldn't take it anymore. 'So,' he said lamely.

'There is something I wish to discuss with you,' Snape stated. Harry's insides churned with threat.

'I've told you I'm not talking about—'

Snape held up a hand. 'You've made it perfectly clear you find the idea of confiding in me in any way, shape or form thoroughly abhorrent. I have a different topic in mind.'

Harry swore he had never met a human being with feelings more delicate than Snape's. And now the man was back to silence again.

'Okay,' he said, because life was too short. 'What is it, sir?'

'I'm buying a house.'

'Oh. That's great. No offense, but Spinner's End is a dump.'

'Yes. I have been considering a change in surroundings since my return from Greece. The house is in Sandsend, near Whitby. I expect to be moving in at the start of January.'

Harry was aware that his emotional reaction to such news should fall somewhere between happy for Snape and completely indifferent. Instead, he felt a sick twist of something like betrayal. Ginny had left the country, Hermione and Ron had both found themselves new causes and occupations, even Mrs Weasley had taken off her old hat and now spoke of little except her new Ministry job. Of course Snape would decide to go ahead and get on with his life, too. He'd spent the last eighteen years dwelling miserably on the past, but now that Harry had begun to draw some real benefit from the fact, he decided he'd had enough of it.

It was stupid. Harry tried for excitement. 'That's great,' he repeated. 'I—Whitby, that's by the sea, isn't it? I've heard it's really nice.'

'It is not _nice,_ Potter, it is a nightmare tourist trap run over by rabid seagulls and children. The house is in Sandsend, _near_ Whitby. I was merely providing an approximate, since I very much doubt you are intimately familiar with the geography of the region.'

Jesus, thought Harry.

'Okay, fine. _Near_ Whitby, the nightmare tourist trap. Got it.' He swallowed. 'Do you want to give me the address? I mean, I'm guessing you'll be busy with the move, but once you're ready to start up research again and all, if you still need help then I'd know where to find you.'

Cold spot in Siberia, he thought. There was always Siberia.

'It's not a large house,' Snape said.

Harry had known this person since he was eleven. He was only now realising he hadn't ever learnt to understand whatever language Snape spoke.

'… okay?'

'Unfortunately, finding an adequate house without a second bedroom is apparently a tall order, so despite my intense dislike for excess, I have a spare room that I would prefer to put to use.'

Harry rubbed at his temple. 'Look, sir, I feel like I should tell you right now, I have zero idea what this is building up to.'

Snape closed his eyes for the entire length of a heavy sigh. 'It is endlessly surprising to me that you managed to get a single OWL. If your inability to read between the lines is a gauge for the analytical acumen of the entire student body, Merlin help us all. Do you ever _read,_ Potter? I am obviously proposing that you rent the room.'

There was, Harry was certain, no possible universe in which he could have guessed Snape had been building up to _that._

Completely unable to sift through the inundation of emotion, he said the only thing that came readily to mind. 'You're so awkward.'

Snape stood up so quickly Harry thought he might have given him whiplash. Without a word, he strode to the sink and began spelling the dishes clean, his face hidden from view. All in all, it was a preferable reaction to the attempted murder Harry had kind of expected, and at least it gave him some space to process.

He didn't know how to process.

'You want me to move in with you,' he said slowly to Snape's back. 'Why would you want that? You hate me.'

Snape stopped washing up. He fisted his hands on the counter until they grew white. 'Yes, Potter, I have asked you, a person I _hate,_ to rent a room in my house. Do we need to further discuss your abysmal reasoning skills?'

'Okay, so you don't _hate me_ hate me,' Harry allowed. 'But that is a huge leap to make, from being okay with having me around to help with note-taking a few times a week, to wanting me to _move in with you._ '

' _Hate you_ hate you, what does that even mean?' Snape spun around, voice rising. 'If you won't speak English, Potter, I do not think I am interested in having this discussion.'

'Which leads me to conclude,' Harry ignored him, 'that there is something more going on. Like maybe that this has something to do with what happened on Christmas Eve.'

' _Of course_ it has something to do with what happened on Christmas Eve, you foolish child! It had never been a good idea to allow you to live here alone with the state you'd been in, but I had no notion of how desperate the situation was before you showed up to my house bleeding out over yourself. That particular visual tends to make an impression.'

'So you're asking me to live with you because you think I should be on _suicide watch_? I've told you, I'm _not_ trying to kill myself, but it would be too much to expect you listen to what I'm saying, wouldn't it—'

'That's almost entirely correct. I have no interest in listening to what you have to say right now. But I am not _asking_ , I am telling.'

'Oh, so what are you planning on doing when I tell you to leave me the hell alone? You're going to cast Imperius on me until I've walked myself into my new bedroom, and lock me up in there? Because I'll warn you right now, sir, I've been known to fight off that spell pretty promptly.'

'By your own admission, you will not go back to your relatives,' Snape hissed, 'and you will not stay with your friends at the Burrow. By all means, you are free to turn to either of those support networks instead. I am confident even Andromeda Tonks would gladly have you stay at her house, if she were informed you'd nearly killed yourself two days ago.'

The outrage felt like something cold and thick being poured down his throat, like a clasp around his lungs, like the door closing on a trap.

He wanted to yell at Snape. He wanted to cast on him the most heinous hexes he could come up with. Instead, what came out of his mouth was a soft plea.

'You can't tell them.'

He hated the way he sounded.

'If you do as I have asked of you, then I won't need to,' Snape stated coldly. 'If you weren't so blinded by your delicate teenage sensibilities, you'd see that I am trying to help you, Potter.'

'You're not helping me,' Harry said weakly, resenting the tears that were well on their way to his eyes. 'This isn't helping me.'

'Seven years ago, I chose to remain in Hogwarts because that was the only way I could see of fulfilling my promise to protect you.' Snape took a breath. 'Now, this is the only way I see. I refuse to take half measures that I have little faith in.'

'Oh,' Harry chuckled wetly, 'so this is an ultimatum. I either do things your way, or you're washing your hands clean.'

Snape stared at the ceiling for a moment. 'Yes,' he decided finally.

'Get out of my house.'

'Potter—' Snape said, tone warning.

'I _hate you_ ,' it came out something like a whimper. 'I can't—just leave me alone, I don't want to talk to you anymore.'

Through the haze of tears, he could tell that Snape's face had lost much of its colour. 'Potter, I am not leaving until we have finished this discussion.'

'It's finished. The answer is no, get out, leave me alone. I am going up to my room now so you can take your time getting your things or whatever, but then you have to go.'

Harry turned away and started toward the stairs, knowing that he had little time: if he remained in the same room as Snape much longer, he would lose what little composure he had left.

He heard movement behind him. He turned fast enough to stop Snape before he could make to grab him.

He had spent the last hour trying hard to _not_ say exactly what was on his mind. He realised now that he had to give Snape _something_ real, or else he wouldn't listen.

'You've really hurt me,' he said plainly. ' _Please_ go.'

He then spun around before he could see the expression on Snape's face, and bounded up the stairs to lock himself in his dead godfather's childhood bedroom, which he resolved not to leave for the rest of the day, if ever.


	12. December 26th, 1998 (II)

**December 26th, 1998 (II).**

The idea had been to come and sort through the newly arrived fireworks and the leftover Christmas items that would need to be put on sale. It would be another day before they reopened, but no one had any interest in coming in to do the work, so Percy argued they might as well do it when they were already hangover and sleep-deprived and miserable.

The reality was, cramming six people into a storage room full of candy on Boxing Day led to less sorting and more shenanigans, and Ron had the distinct sense he would be coming in again tomorrow. He did not complain. It had been worth it to see George holler with laughter when Percy spent five minutes complaining about his sore throat and headache, only to have Kamilah open an expired Weather in a Bottle on him and in all seriousness say she was sorry he felt under the weather. Percy was still finding locusts in the folds of his cloak.

He'd extended the invitation purely to tick a box, so he'd been surprised when Kamilah showed up. George decided she'd likely come in the hope there would be freebies. If she continued to make him laugh, Ron was willing to cough up another Christmas bonus.

Eventually, he abandoned the game of Russian roulette Ginny had set up with sweets from the Skiving Snackbox, in favour of being pulled into an empty aisle and kissed senseless by Hermione, who was either turned on by stupidity or so exhausted she didn't know what she was doing anymore.

'You have a dead locust in your hair,' he said lamely when she broke for breath. It was dark and crammed and hot and altogether overwhelming, and he'd been hoping to say something smooth to fit the mood, but he'd had all the smooth snogged out of him.

'I've actually been meaning to ask,' Hermione said, pulling the locust out and tossing it aside, 'what _was_ the original spell? Was it charmed to produce rain and it expired into locusts, or was it meant to produce live locusts? I think the latter would actually be more interesting as a side-effect—'

Ron didn't think it was at all normal to be so in love with someone. It was giving him heart disease. It hurt to look at her when she talked.

'You're gonna have to ask George about that one,' he told her. 'But I think it's actually randomised whether you get rain or the plague.'

Hermione's eyes shone. 'That's even _more_ interesting.'

'Yeah? Do I get a kiss for providing mental stimulation? That feels like it should be a rule.'

She chuckled, and made to kiss him again, but her body betrayed her halfway through and broke into a yawn instead. Ron snorted before she'd managed to close her mouth, and she sent him a glare with exactly the right kind of heat.

'Honestly though,' he said, 'you do realise you're working yourself way too hard, don't you?'

'That doesn't sound like the conversation we were having. From what I remember, our conversation involved less talking.'

Ron decided he would not be swayed. 'And we can come back to that conversation after you admit you have a problem. You fell asleep on me at _eleven_ last night. Midway through a conversation.'

'I was drunk.'

'You had half a drink.'

'You know how end of term is.'

'How you always go overboard at the end of term? Yeah, I knew that. So I know that this is excessive, even for you.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. He had tried to make this point on several occasions over the past few months, and she'd get annoyed and change the subject every time. He had always feared she would accuse him of not knowing what he was talking about, because working in a joke shop would make anyone seem like they were going overboard on productivity. She never did.

'Look, Ron,' she said. 'This year is important. And I have a lot of things I need to be doing on top of school. So maybe my way is not the healthiest way, but I honestly don't see that I can change that right now. Can we agree it's enough that I'm aware I have a problem?'

'Alright,' he agreed reluctantly. 'As long as you're aware you have a problem.'

'Perfect.'

'And as long as you agree to try sleeping sometime. I don't know if you have bags under your eyes or eyes over your bags anymore.'

'Ronald Weasley, you know just what to say to make a girl feel good about herself,' she complained, jabbing him in the chest with an accusatory finger. He kissed the upturned corner of her lips.

'Hey, I didn't say that was a bad thing. Maybe I have a thing for the undead, you don't know.'

She angled him back to nibble playfully at his throat, and his eyes drifted shut on a moan. When he opened them, he was staring directly into Kamilah's face.

He startled back so hard, he knocked his head into a shelf and for a moment saw nothing but stars.

'Blimey,' he breathed. 'How long have you been standing there?'

'Long enough,' she said. 'This is fast devolving into public indecency. I might have to report you to my manager.'

'I'm your manager.'

'You are?' she gaped. 'I thought you just liked hanging out in the shop.'

Hermione laughed. Ron needed to have a conversation with her about upholding his authority or something. But it seemed they were good at serious conversations only until they remembered they could be making out instead.

When they returned to the fold, they discovered that Ginny and George had decided to implement a new method of taking inventory that involved getting fireworks out of their boxes and setting them off in the confined space of the storage room.

'We need to make sure this is good quality product, Ronniekins,' George said with mock seriousness. 'And that it's safe to use inside as well as outside the house.'

'It isn't safe to use inside the house,' Percy said unhappily, tapping at the empty packaging. 'It literally says so on the box.'

'We need to make sure it's _not_ safe to use inside the house, then,' Ginny giggled. 'Imagine if it turned out it _was_ safe, and we've been mislabelling the product!'

The firework went off then, deafening and blinding.

It took Ron a good moment to realise the pounding in his head wasn't his heart trying to leap out through his nose, but a knock on the front door, amplified by the Knocker Spell.

'We're closed!' Kamilah roared, which was almost worse than the firework. 'It's bloody Boxing Day!'

Whoever was knocking must have really needed to skive off family dinner, because they were not giving up. They agreed on a game of rock-paper-scissors. On the third round, Kamilah groaned and got up to open the door.

'I don't know why you're always saying she's scary,' Ginny pouted at Ron. 'She is perfectly lovely.'

'With fire-breathing maneaters as your point of reference, I'm not surprised you would think that.'

Hermione went to sit with George and grill him about the Weather In A Bottle spell. Ron monitored at first, but it seemed his brother was genuinely excited to share.

When Kamilah returned, she nudged Ron's hip with her foot. 'Your thing for the undead is at the door. He says he needs to talk to you.'

It took Ron a beat to untangle the statement. He considered asking, but ultimately decided it would be easier and less embarrassing to go and investigate himself. With a nod at Hermione, who was watching the exchange with narrowed eyes, he got up and patted out of the room. He heard footsteps behind him and smiled to himself. She'd followed.

In the orange glow of the streetlamp outside stood Snape, pale-faced and wearing the sort of stormy expression that usually meant Ron's potion would gain him a Troll no matter what he did.

'Professor Snape,' Hermione greeted him carefully. 'Is everything alright?'

'I need you to go check on Potter.' Ron felt a weight settle in his stomach. Another firework erupted from inside the store, the bang followed by a gaggle of laughter. Snape's eyebrows furrowed. 'Is he with you?'

'No,' Ron said. 'We asked him over, but he didn't fancy it tonight.'

'I see,' Snape hissed. 'So you went ahead and partied without him, and never bothered to find out precisely _why_ he didn't fancy spending time with his friends during the holidays.'

'Hey!' Ron exclaimed, barely hearing himself through his inner monologue, _why are we arguing about this, why are we wasting time, what's up with Harry, what has he done to Harry._ 'Are you really going to come in here and tell us we're rubbish friends? Because as far as I remember, being a rubbish friend up until they were dead was kind of your signature move?'

'Ron!'

Snape looked like he was about to strike him. Ron tried to convince himself he didn't find him absolutely terrifying.

'You are treading on thin ice, Mr Weasley,' Snape murmured with deceptive softness. 'I would advise you to curb your Gryffindor bravado before it gets you into more trouble than you can handle.'

'What he meant to say, Professor,' Hermione chimed in quickly, 'is that it's not really fair to judge us for not pressing Harry on things like this. We're his friends. There's only a certain amount of overbearing we can be before we're not doing our job anymore.'

Snape looked like whatever he was about to say pained him. 'I know,' he admitted finally. Ron had the urge to give Hermione a high-five. 'But I left him a few hours ago in a poor emotional state. I would appreciate it if you went to see him.'

'What happened?' Hermione asked before Ron got any further than opening his mouth. 'Is Harry okay?'

'I believe I've just told you he was upset,' Snape said icily. 'I don't see how what transpired is any of your business unless Mr Potter decides to confide in you, but I assure you that seeing me would only exacerbate his distress, hence why I am here instead.'

Ron was already in the process of fishing out his coin. Quickly, he spelled on, _Wizard Wheezes with Hermione._ A beat later, the gold warmed in his palm. _Grimmauld Place_ was the curt reply. Ron felt a knot ease. It had been a stupid fear.

'He's in Grimmauld,' he told Hermione, uncaring if Snape thought he was stating the obvious. 'Let's just go back in to tell George we're leaving, yeah?'

Hermione nodded, her face set in resolve. He could see beneath it the remnants of that same fear.

'Thank you,' Snape said, before turning around with a swish of his coats and stalking off into the night. Hermione and Ron exchanged a bemused look.

'What did he _do_ to him?' Ron wondered aloud.

'I don't know,' Hermione said, eyes fixed on the back of the disappearing figure. 'But it must have been bad.'

It was bad.

They found Harry curled over himself in bed, and though he'd smiled at them with his usual brilliance, he'd also attempted to covertly feel at his cheeks to ensure the burying of evidence. It was for nothing: either he'd been crying, or he'd suddenly developed a life-threatening dust allergy.

'What are you guys doing here?' he asked wetly, then cleared his throat. 'Is Ron hiding from Kamilah again?'

'We've missed you,' Hermione perched on the bed by his side. 'It wasn't as fun without you there.'

In fact, it had been quite a lot of fun without Harry there, and Ron had already felt guilty about thinking that before Snape threw it in his face.

Well, he wasn't about to add obfuscation to his list of sins.

'Also, Snape came to the shop and told us to check on you,' he said. Harry's eyes widened. Hermione sent Ron a death glare.

'What did he tell you?' Harry's tone was dark. For a moment, Ron was almost afraid of him.

'Nothing, really,' Hermione piped up. 'Just that you were upset and that something happened between the two of you, but he wouldn't say what.'

Harry drew in a breath that went straight through Ron's heart. He had been jealous of Harry before, he had been insecure and in awe and grateful and angry, but all of it had been because he looked up to him. A lot. It was difficult to see Harry's defeated form now and feel anything but pity, and Ron wasn't sure whether his definitions could take it.

'We argued,' Harry said, half into the crook of his elbow. 'He wants me to rent a room at his new house. He told me that if I said no, he doesn't want anything more to do with me, and that he'd tell everyone that I'd tried to kill myself. Which isn't even true. But try telling Snape anything that doesn't fit into his own personal worldview.'

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look. Ron didn't think it conveyed the sheer magnitude of how much he needed Harry to repeat, slowly.

'Snape is looking for a housemate?' he said lamely. 'I can't believe he didn't even ask me.'

Hermione was about to say his name in _that_ voice, but then Harry chortled. Ron sent her a winning smile. She rolled her eyes. He wished sometimes that his friends and family members could go a few days without any major crises, because they seemed to always get in the way of his and Hermione's conversations in cramped storage aisles.

'Why does he think you tried to kill yourself?' Hermione's knitted eyebrows were somehow more attractive than Hermione's relaxed eyebrows. Ron thought maybe he should stop scrabbling for distractions.

'Because,' Harry hid his head between his knees, glasses sliding off to drop on the mattress, 'I kind of cut myself pretty bad on Christmas Eve and he fixed me up. But I never intended for it to go that far. I just wasn't thinking.'

Ron closed his eyes. Hermione's eyebrows would not help. He felt a dozen things at once and couldn't decide which was the most shameful: the disappointment that he couldn't look up to his best friend in the same way anymore? The indignation that Harry went to Snape, of all people, when Ron and Hermione had been talking and worrying for months? The desire to shake Harry into being normal again, into getting over himself because hey, Ron knew his life wasn't perfect, but it had _never_ been perfect, and the difference between now and then was one major existential threat gone, so why was it that now, suddenly, Harry was losing it?

'Oh, Harry,' Hermione said. Then, she fell silent. Ron didn't blame her.

'I mean, it's good that you didn't mean to, mate,' Ron shoved away every last shameful feeling, to deal with later, 'but I think the problem is, it's kind of hard to hurt yourself that bad by accident, without your survival instincts kicking in or whatever. So it's not a great sign that you were able to do that, right?'

'I know,' Harry admitted softly. 'But I've already killed myself once. That night I went into the Forest, remember? I know what it feels like, to make that choice. All I'm saying is, this time, I didn't make that choice.'

Hermione hugged him. Her shoulders were stiff, like she was trying desperately to keep herself from crying. Harry hid his face in her hair, so Ron couldn't see his eyes, but his whole frame was shaking.

It was awkward to try and offer comfort from Ron's vantage point. He tried sliding closer on the bed, but Hermione was in the way, and all he could really do was pat Harry on the head, which felt ridiculous. He did it anyway, not wanting to feel like a dick.

They stayed silent for a while as Harry's hands slowly turned pink again, fingers unclenching from Hermione's robes. Eventually, he let go completely and collapsed back against the pillows with a breathy laugh, wiping at his face with an already soaked sleeve. Hermione accio'd some tissues for the both of them and they leaned against the headboard side-by-side, looking at Ron red-eyed, sniffling and disgusting. He couldn't help the idiot grin.

'What?' Hermione kicked him.

'Nothing,' he shook his head. 'I'm just glad we're all here.'

'Yeah,' agreed Harry. Hermione wrapped his arms around him and squeezed until he squeaked at her to let him breathe.

'So, he came to Wizard Wheezes, did he?' Harry asked. When Ron looked up, he avoided his eye.

'Yeah,' he huffed. 'Got to give it to the guy, he has some balls to drop by like that after what I've—' at Hermione's questioning glance, he broke, but it was too late not to explain. 'I might have sort of implied before that I would punch him if he didn't play nice with Harry. And by "imply" I mean said so to his face.'

'Ronald!'

'I would actually like to see that,' Harry chuckled.

'See, Hermione?' Ron pointed at Harry. 'It would make Harry happy. You're not going to deny him that, are you?'

Harry and Hermione both found this inordinately hilarious. As they eased their bouts of laughter, Ron let himself fall back to lie flat on the bed. He was feeling superficially giggly, because Harry and Hermione were actually giggly and it wasn't hard to tune in; but also as though he'd missed out on the moment of catharsis. The lingering fear and shame warred for dominance just beneath the veneer. He wanted to sleep for a week and forget any of this ever happened.

'Okay, so like, suicide and all, important stuff,' he said at the ceiling, 'but the big question is, you're not actually thinking of moving in with Snape, are you? There's still some hope for your survival instincts, right?'

'I'm pretty sure the offer's off the table anyway,' Ron caught him smile crookedly. 'But no, I'm not going to move in with him just because he thinks he can blackmail me into doing anything he says.'

'If he hadn't blackmailed you though,' Hermione's eyes briefly met Ron's in warning. 'I mean, would you want to?'

'I don't know. It's not like I love it here, and I know he probably thinks he's doing the right thing. But—no, I mean, I can't even imagine that. It would probably be a nightmare.'

'A nightmare? Harry, why would you say that? Snape's got to be, like, the sweetest guy we know!'

This time, it was Harry who attempted to kick him. Ron caught the foot before it made contact with his shoulder. Later, he thought. Later, he would sleep, and he would wake up and be okay again. 'I bet he'd make you those smiley-face pancakes every morning,' he mused. 'And then at night, you'd have pyjama parties and talk about girls… Harry, mate, I can't believe you would pass that up.'

'Is that what you two do when I'm at Hogwarts?' Hermione raised an eyebrow. That was hot, too.

'Only when Snape comes by,' promised Ron, and grinned when Harry choked on another fit of laughter.


	13. December 31st, 1998 / January 1st, 1999

**December 31st, 1998 / January 1st, 1999.**

'Oh, they _adore_ a squirrel,' the clerk cooed. 'And it's not quite the same unless she gets to catch it live, you see. The thrill of the chase.'

Harry regarded the box with mounting dread. Keeping an owl in the heart of London had proven significantly more challenging than keeping one in the woods of Scotland. For instance, there was the moral quandary of whether he was willing to sign the death warrant on a boxful of fluffy tails. 'There are parks around,' he tried weakly. The clerk huffed.

'You would feed a Borneal Owl squirrels bred on litter and fumes from those wretched Muggle machines? A Borneal Owl, of all things!'

He hadn't even wanted another owl. But there were things an adult wizard needed to own, according to Kreacher, or else he would be bringing shame on his bloodline. This included an owl, a property, and an artist under signed agreement to produce a magical portrait in the event of death. And thus, Harry found himself coming home one day to an owl perched on the kitchen table. He was fairly certain Kreacher had stolen it from the owlery: store-bought owls tended to come in cages labelled with species-specific care instructions, and all that the elf could tell Harry about the thing was her name. Kreacher lived in the belief there were things in the world Harry was entitled to simply by virtue of being master of the Black residence, and apparently Hogwarts property was included. Harry dreaded the day he would come home to discover a painter who'd gone missing in mysterious circumstances, cuffed to the stair rail.

Artemis was too noble a name for a tiny owl who seemed to Harry essentially a flying hedgehog. She also appeared mildly confused by everything that surrounded her. There were plenty well-sized, majestic birds in the Hogwarts owlery. But this one had 'reminded Kreacher of his master.'

The clerk shared Kreacher's enthusiasm. From Harry's description, she'd identified Artemis as a rare species with a fondness for squirrels, and here Harry was, picking out coins from his pocket to pay for the privilege of playing witness to bloodshed.

'I'll get these packed up for you,' the clerk grinned. Harry wondered if she was a serial killer in the making.

He turned away to amuse himself by looking at the giant chameleon currently on display, and found himself staring straight into the eye of the last person he wanted to see today. He'd been in a good mood and was decided on remaining so until he was counting down from ten with his friends tonight: he needed next year to start off on a happy note.

Severus Snape looked comparably startled. He stood tense and still, holding in his hand a brown paper bag. Something was moving within.

Harry wondered whether he would get away with walking out the door right now and pretending like he hadn't seen him.

'Mr Potter.'

Apparently not.

'Professor Snape,' he said, feeling silly. 'What, uh, what brings you here?'

'Cockroaches,' Snape said. Then, he cleared his throat and looked pointedly away from Harry. 'The rates are better than in the Apothecary.'

'Right,' Harry said. He thought this might have been less awkward if he could look at Snape when he spoke. 'I'm just getting food for my owl.'

'Yes,' Snape said stiffly. He took a sudden step forward to place himself in queue behind Harry. 'The snowy owl. Quite distinct.'

'Oh, no, she's dead, actually,' Harry said with a twinge of old pain. This was _not_ helping him keep up his mood. 'I've got a new one now.'

Snape nodded off to the side. Harry was fairly certain he hadn't processed a word.

'There you go, Mr Potter,' the clerk returned, sliding the box toward him. It made a squealing sound. 'Just the cockroaches for you, sir?'

Snape gave a terse nod. Harry watched his hands as he counted the coins. They trembled minutely.

It was awkward to walk out together, but it would have been even more awkward not to, and so they found themselves strolling down Diagon Alley side-by-side – if staying six feet apart even counted – feigning interest in the displays. Some promised end of the year sales; many were plastered with posters advertising the Diagon Alley Firework Extravaganza. The colourful sparks they spat at passers-by had been giving Harry a headache all week.

'Are you attending?' Snape asked when Harry stepped closer to him to avoid a particularly rambunctious poster. He didn't much feel like having his coat set on fire today.

'Oh, yeah, the Weasleys are providing some of the fireworks. We'll be watching from the roof of the shop.'

Seemingly satisfied with the answer, Snape said nothing more on the subject. Harry's good mood was dead and gone. After their row he had felt, at first, flayed raw in a way he hadn't in a long time, but these last days with Ron and Hermione, who'd been staying over, had distanced him from the shock and made him wonder if he'd overreacted. Maybe if they had spoken about it all in a calm and reasonable manner, they could have reached some sort of compromise. Maybe if Harry hadn't pushed Snape into stating his intention with such finality. Maybe if Harry had been normal about this. It seemed foolish to feel such intense anger over something so minor. It didn't stop Harry feeling it. But he knew it was foolish.

Judging by the fact neither could bear to look the other in the eye, it would appear it was too late to do anything differently. Harry would be taking a turn into Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes in just a moment. He didn't want to end the year like this.

'I've told Ron and Hermione,' he offered. 'About what happened on Christmas Eve.'

'I see.'

He could see already the colourful display of the shop. He wanted suddenly to prove to Snape that he wasn't entirely hopeless. 'I've bought a new coat,' he extended the arm that wasn't holding the squirrel box, to draw attention to the sleeve. 'I've never had one with a heating spell before. It's really warm.'

Snape said nothing. Harry felt like a complete idiot.

'Anyway, this is me,' he managed weakly, pointing at the store with his chin. 'Have a good—'

'There is a potion that will paralyse your limbs, leaving you completely immobile. The effect may be eased by an antidote for short bouts of time, restoring enough movement for the victim to make their way to the bathroom if they are quick with it,' Snape said, suddenly drawing to a halt. 'Did you know that, Potter?'

Harry didn't know what he was expected to say to that.

Snape didn't seem interested anyway, because he pressed on, eyes fixed somewhere above Harry's head, 'In fact, there are several potions and curses that may be used to restrict movement or the ability of a wizard to wield any sort of agency. After the events of Christmas Eve, I considered using them all on you.'

Was this the moment Harry released his herd of squirrels for a distraction and got himself the hell out of there? 'Uh, I'd rather you didn't, to be honest,' he said carefully.

'No,' Snape agreed. 'Unfortunately, none of them are tenable solutions in the long run. I am merely making you aware that I had in fact negotiated down to emotional blackmail, and though it might not have seemed that way, I was thus exhibiting considerable restraint.'

Again, Harry found himself at a loss. He was ready to chance a glance at Snape's face for a hint of how to interpret the declaration, when the man cleared his throat and stated, 'Not that it matters now. Enjoy the festivities, Mr Potter.'

Then, he stalked off, leaving Harry feeling rather destitute.

Fortunately, there were things to be done, like feeding Artemis and making dinner for himself and Hermione, and shaving and getting dressed and trying to do _something_ to his hair, because Ginny would be there and he didn't want to get back together with Ginny, but he wanted her to think he looked good and maybe regret their break-up at least _a little_ ; and, right, Grimmauld Place wasn't a solitary den dedicated to mulling over his uselessness anymore, because although Ron had left to mind the shop, Hermione was running there and back, making noise and being distracting. He had understood in the last few days why Snape might have for a moment believed it was a good idea for Harry to move in with him. Even hearing his friends' breathing at night made it easier to fall asleep without first having a panic attack.

'Okay, are you ready?' he called out, giving up on the hair. 'We're already late!'

'How am I supposed to be ready?' Hermione emerged from the bathroom, followed by a cloud of steam. 'I'm not even dressed—crap, is that another owl? I can't, Harry, I need to do my hair, or, dry my hair, something, please just pretend you're me and write back something generic, I don't even care anymore—'

She disappeared into her bedroom with a slam of the door. Harry had no idea one person could be getting this much post. Tonight alone, there had been letters stamped with crests of Hogwarts, St. Mungo's, and two separate Ministry departments. Apparently, everyone in a position of power only remembered there were issues to deal with in the eleventh hour.

Harry didn't know much about the filing error in the last batch of students admitted for trauma therapy in December, or anything else he might have to correspond on, but Hermione was stressed out enough. The envelope had no crest, however, and he promptly realised it hadn't even been addressed to Hermione. Uncharacteristically for wizarding post, it also bore a return address. Sandsend.

He ripped the envelope open with stiff fingers. It contained less of a letter and more a missive, scribbled rather haphazardly on a small piece of parchment,

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_Should you find yourself ingesting a poison, locate a bezoar at your earliest convenience. Do not take up troll hunting. Do not place fireworks directly in your face._ _ Do _ _try not to die this year. You have only a few hours left, so even you should manage that much._

_With regards,_

_Severus Snape_

'Alright, you know what, this is hopeless, let's just go,' Hermione's door banged open again. 'It will be dark anyway. What was the letter?'

'Oh, nothing,' Harry folded the parchment and pushed it into his pocket, trying to hold back a loopy smile. 'It was for me anyway. Let's go!'

You could see the entire sky from the roof of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, stretched taut between the distant glimmer of London City and the ruckus above old Florian Fortescue's shop, where the fireworks were being set up. Percy had spelled fire orbs into the air, which kept them all pleasantly warm, and though the music from the street rose through the bulk of wintry air, it arrived diluted enough that it didn't overpower conversation. Ginny and Fleur were dancing anyway. By eleven thirty, Percy had had enough to drink to join them, and Harry, Ron and Hermione amused themselves for a good twenty minutes watching him be very bad at it.

The fireworks went off at midnight exactly, erupting over their heads like a thousand Bombardas going off at once, and something in Harry's chest snagged at an unhealed fear, heart pumping blood at once to his legs like it was getting ready to run. But after that, it was brilliant light and vertiginous whorls and golden rain, and Ginny and George shrieking in joy, and Harry looked from the sky to the faces illuminated by bursts of colour, and he was suddenly swallowing back tears. He wanted to hold this moment in his hands, when Hermione and Ron exploded in surprised laughter as a red helix twisted and turned suddenly into a fire-breathing dragon. When George caught his eye and raised his champagne glass with put-upon seriousness. When the next fire rainbow in the sky became reflected in Ginny's wide eyes. He did his best to commit every last detail to memory, because he felt happy and free but it wouldn't last, and when one morning, tomorrow or the day after or next week, he woke up into greyness again, he needed to remember.

Maybe he was just as ungrateful as Snape had said, Harry wondered without shame. If he had these people stood right beside him now, and if he had this moment, that alone should feed him for a lifetime.

It probably wouldn't, but he'd rather believe it tonight, he thought.

Later, Hermione came to join him on the ledge, where he was swinging his feet in the drop. She looked at him critically.

'Worried I'll jump?' he asked, and his grin must have been reassuring enough, because she huffed and swung her legs down, too. He kicked at her foot in what he hoped was thanks.

'1999,' she said. Harry hummed in agreement. 'Have you made any resolutions?'

'Well. Last year, we defeated Voldemort and won a war. I think we'll need to adjust our ambitions.'

Hermione laughed. She got looser with her laughs when she'd been drinking, and Harry thought it made her seem much younger. 'That's true. For next year, I will contend with graduating with a full set of O's. Oh, and I want to apprentice with the International Confederation of Wizards, I've decided, have I told you? They actually have a programme, as opposed to the Ministry, which is really a travesty, they do not even try to act as though their admission policy is anything but nepotism. And I would like to try and resurrect S.P.E.W. in some capacity, though I'm not sure how best to approach it—'

'You heard me when I said the thing about adjusting our ambitions?'

Hermione waved him off. 'I'm sorry, I know I go on and on. What about you?'

Harry shrugged.

'Perhaps reading through the list of Mind Healers might be a nice resolution?'

She'd given him the list three days ago. He had stuffed it in the bottom of a drawer. He couldn't remember which. 'Look, Hermione, I really don't feel up to talking to a stranger about Boy Hero woes, especially if the only reason they see me at all is because they've knocked someone down the list who needs it more but isn't half as exciting to tell your kids about.'

'Alright, but I do think you should talk to someone, Harry,' she pressed. 'I won't tell you whom, and you can always talk to me, you know that, but promise me you will.'

'I'm talking to you right now, aren't I?' he asked tightly.

'You know that's not what I meant. Soon enough, you'll be alone in Grimmauld Place, and I don't want things to get so horrible again. Perhaps another good resolution would be to write McGonagall about going back to Hogwarts in September? Oh, and sixth-years will be starting their Apparition course soon enough. You've never actually been licensed, and I know the Ministry's been rather laissez-faire so far, but that might be a good thing to get done in the spring.'

Where was Ron? This was the moment Ron would tell a joke and get Hermione distracted enough to back off. Normally, Harry was quite pleased that they'd not become completely joined at the hip since they'd got together, but right now he wished they were a little more inseparable.

'Maybe,' he said through clenching teeth.

'And I do have a request for you, Harry, before I go back to Hogwarts,' Hermione was apparently unaware of his distress, 'and I think you'll agree that's a nice thing to start off the year with. I think you should give me the knife.'

Harry halted just before he fell off the balancing line into fury. If she meant what he thought she meant, there would be no helping it. 'The knife?'

'The one you used to—you know,' Hermione explained. At least she had the decency to sound uncomfortable.

'That knife belonged to Sirius. I don't see what business it is of yours.'

'Did he give it to you as a gift?'

'What? No. I found it in his bedroom.'

'Then it has no more sentimental value than anything else in that room, which I know if full of Sirius's things. Most of which you haven't used to seriously injure yourself.'

'Can we talk about something else?'

'Harry, I'm only trying to help—'

'I don't recall asking you for your help, Hermione.'

Hermione straightened. 'You don't have to ask me, Harry. I'm your friend, of course I want to help you.'

'Well, you're _not helping,_ ' he tightened his hands on the ledge. He couldn't decide what he wanted more: to push Hermione off or to jump. 'I've not asked you to come and tell me about all the things _you_ 're going to do with your life, and then boss me around about what I should do with mine. I haven't asked you to come in and try to fix my problems. They're _my_ business, Hermione, and you don't get to tell me what to do with my life.'

'What do you want from me, then?' she raised her voice now, and it trembled. Harry didn't have room in him to feel bad about that. 'What do you want me to do, Harry? Just stand aside and watch you make a mess of it? You're not doing well, we've established that, so what is your plan now? How are you going to get better?'

'I'm just—I can't do this right now!' he got to his feet. 'I'm not in the right—mind-frame, or, whatever, but things will change, and then I'll figure it out on my own, okay?'

'What things?' Hermione rose as well, eyes thunderous and desperate. 'What's going to change, Harry? Nothing changes unless _you_ change it. How is anything going to get better if you do nothing?'

Harry had no answer to that. He turned away, stalked across the roof, shoved aside Percy and George, who were wailing some old wizarding chorus about Merlin's magnificence, and rushed down the fire escape. He needed to put as much distance as possible between himself and Hermione's overbearing concern. It made him angry, and it made him ashamed, and it made him feel useless and worthless and small, and stupid to ever feel that way.

At least he'd got one thing right tonight. He'd known the feeling of joy wouldn't last long.


	14. August 18th, 1998

**August 18th, 1998.**

_Dear Severus,_

Narcissa's script was as curlicued and graceful as ever, written in quality ink on thick parchment. Azkaban standards had improved dramatically, Severus thought, or perhaps Narcissa Malfoy would be Narcissa Malfoy wherever she went.

_I appreciate your thinking of me. Rumours of your exact allegiance have been as numerous as the ladies and gentlemen I had the pleasure of meeting in this hellhole, and though I would hope you know I am above gossip, I did wish for a clarification. You have provided. If only for this reason, I feel compelled to answer your questions to the best of my ability._

Oh, but she was pissed off. If he hadn't seen the announcement in the Prophet that she'd been sentenced to five years in Azkaban, and if the sun hadn't been so strong as to burn a hole straight through his brain, he would have perhaps worried over possible repercussions: as skilled as he might have been in the Dark Arts, Narcissa had inherited generations' worth of unique curses from both the Blacks and the Malfoys. Hopefully, she would remember he _did_ protect her son when it came down to it. Choosing to protect other people's children when it came down to it seemed to constitute Severus's primary survival strategy, he thought bitterly.

_The Ministry has indeed commandeered our assets, stripping Draco of his rightful inheritance and leaving him with nothing whatsoever with which to support himself or the elves employed by Malfoy Manor, which The Ministry would have perhaps considered were their apparent regard for the weak and vulnerable anything but a white glove. Fortunately, we have found last recourse in our cousins from the continent, who have supplied Draco with a stipend. I cannot believe what the wizarding community would think should they know that the Malfoys were seeking charity, and with my own house already disgraced beyond anything I could have imagined, I would ask you to keep these details to yourself._

Severus leaned back in his deckchair and closed his eyes against the sun. It was hot, true, and the trees gave little shadow, but there was a pleasant breeze from the sea that carried with it the sharp tang of salt, and moving out of the penumbra to find his way back inside seemed like entirely too much effort. His limbs still felt heavy on the best of days, and ached with unhealed inflammation during sleepless nights; he couldn't climb up the stairs without needing to stop to catch his breath, and there were moments he was overtaken jerkily by shivers that caused him to knock down cups of steaming tea, wrench loose shirt buttons, and be forced to rewrite correspondence.

It was a fucking spectacle of humiliation. Thinking about the Malfoys losing their fortune and having to beg unpopular relatives for scraps made him feel a little better. Still, he supposed it was a good thing Draco had not been pushed into complete bankruptcy. When he had written to the boy, it had crossed his mind he might have to extend some offer of financial support: his own funds could not have compared to anything a Malfoy heir would have been used to, but he had long been on the receiving end of a comfortable Hogwarts salary that he hadn't known what to do with. It had even given him a thrill of pleasure to imagine: Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy's dirty beggar pet, magnanimously sending his son a weekly allowance. Of course, Draco had never replied to his letter, and he'd had to inquire after him with Narcissa instead. Severus hadn't been surprised. The boy had been a nightmare at the best of times.

_I am sure the ruling on my husband has been covered by every wizarding magazine the world over, and I am unwilling to further discuss the matter. My own sentence has been set to five years, and Dracon has been released on parole and is constrained to Hogwarts' grounds as he completes his education. If you think this has been a mercy on the part of the Wizengamot, I will correct your assumptions: they would preferably burn on the stake anyone with even a trace of a Dark Mark on their forearm, combative Death Eater or peaceful political supporter, but they fear backlash from abroad, so they choose to leave us all to rot instead. Fortunately, Harry Potter appeared at my trial to speak of the aid I afforded him during the Battle. I am sure you are curious to know more detail than that, but I will not provide fodder for your Order gossip. I will say that Mr Potter also fought for Draco's release, which I am sure would not have been granted had he not involved himself. The house of Malfoy is indebted to Mr Potter, and thus I need no additional incentive from you, Severus, to keep my ears open for signs of vengeful plots. I also do not care for your veiled threats. I believe you might be underestimating how little morale is left among those around me, but should the need arise, I will inform Mr Potter of any danger. I see no reason to involve you in our communication._

A high-pitched yell came from the beach as a rainbow globe sped Severus's way, nearly sending the letter in his grasp flying. He caught the object just as it brushed against his nose: it was one of those inflatable things, full of air and at more risk of being carried off by the wind than hurting a passer-by. Still, he had been jumpy since he'd got out of the hospital, and any sudden motion off his field of vision made him think an old Death Eater friend had come to holiday in Asos, of all places, or that the Ministry had had enough of the confusion and sent an undercover Auror to discreetly dispose of him. His heart was beating hard in his chest. He felt like he needed to lie down. He was already lying down.

An orange-skinned child made its way up the dusty steps. It was small and covered in sand, and still in that genderless age when it could only be differentiated from its siblings by virtue of dress. Asos was a tiny town, and the inn Severus stayed at even tinier; with little to pass the time beyond unscheduled attacks of gut-wrenching panic, he had been cataloguing every vacationer as they came and went. These three children had arrived on Saturday and tended to occupy themselves with shrieking on the beach as their parents sipped cocktails and played cards on the terrace. The parents were as orange as the children, the colour of the dry dirt road that crawled from the Asos train station to shore, under umbrellas of jewelled flowers and overgrown bushes. All the houses were that same colour, too. Severus couldn't make his own bloody tea without scorching his fingers, but at least he wasn't at risk of overexerting his visual cortex.

The children's father had invited Severus to play cards with them one evening. Severus had said no, then locked himself in his room, pushed the window wide open, still couldn't breathe, cast a cooling spell on his sheets, and proceeded to have an existential crisis. He had hoped Greece would prove too hot for those. That had been the whole reason he'd come. He had known that for all the relief he'd felt about his new freedom, he was at risk of thinking too much about it.

The child was making squeaking sounds under its breath. It took Severus a moment to identify them as an apology in mumbled Greek. The brat sounded entirely insincere, rocking on its heels, impatient to get back to the important work of tossing balls into the faces of convalescing war survivors. Severus wished he could have a brain half as devoid of thought. If he'd accidentally thrown a ball into a stranger's face, he wouldn't bother with half-baked apologies, but would proceed to regularly recall the moment with overpowering shame over the next decade.

Severus threw the ball back to the child, who grinned and skittered away without a word of thanks. He thought of Potter. He could not understand why the boy would involve himself in the Malfoys' trial; surely, he was too short-sighted to seek political gain, and there had never been any love lost between him and Draco. It felt like yet another thing Potter did to spite him: a grand gesture of that all-encompassing forgiveness Severus had never been capable of. It was ridiculous, of course. He was fairly certain Potter had never, in his admittedly short life, given a second's thought to what Severus might think or feel. Yet he had the questionable talent of making everything he did cut like a personal slight.

Meanwhile, Severus was trying to recuperate from the time the Dark Lord's snake mauled him half to bloody death, had isolated himself from the British wizarding society for some peace of mind, and yet, he had spent half the convalescence scouring _The Daily Prophet_ and Minerva's stilted letters for any information pertaining to The Boy Who Lived Again. Well, he had another piece of the puzzle. Sometime in July, Potter was alive and well, amusing himself by playing the bigger man in court.

The sun was going to kill him. He'd lost all interest in the remainder of Narcissa's letter. He skimmed to note a few attempts at subtle hostility and several more jibes at the Ministry's new politics, 'they do not care half as much about rebuilding a broken community as they do about classist retribution.' He could walk up to the bar and get a drink, but that would require getting up and his legs had fallen asleep. He'd not taken his Nerve Restoration Potion this morning, hoping that perhaps he could begin cutting down on the amount of magic he was pouring down his throat, but clearly, he had been naïvely optimistic.

Severus had spent much of his adult life following orders and teaching idiots and hating everything about his circumstances, unable to form relationships or speak openly with anyone but the shadow king of the wizarding world, who usually had better things to do than chat about inanities. Today, he was alive despite everything he had expected, and freed from every last obligation, with no mission statement or reckless morons to fret over, and probably with enough money to stay tan and languid for years. The whole thing was unbearable. Now that Severus was no longer sleeping fifteen hours a day, he was beginning to hate Greece with a passion.

Not that returning to the country would have been any better. There was nothing there for him to do. There was no salty breeze either, or orange children tripping over each other in the sand like nothing bad had ever happened to them in their lives, like nothing bad had ever happened to anyone. Like everything was fine. He hoped the rude carrot child would grow up to get a perfectly regular job and waste evenings away playing cards and drinking cocktails, and never remember that one time he'd nearly given a man on the beach an anxiety attack. Hopefully, the past would mean nothing to the orange child, ever, and so it wouldn't feel so horribly confused when it was released from its web.

Just thinking of facing Minerva again, of having to explain the tangle that had been Albus's plan to a Ministry official, even of putting his wizarding clothes back on, made it difficult to breathe.

He used to despise wearing Muggle clothes. He had wanted to look like a pureblood wizard but couldn't afford it, and you didn't need satin to make black and flowy look magical. Severus didn't think he'd been particularly ashamed of growing up half-Muggle for several years now, and yet his distaste for Muggle clothes had taken on a life of its own, becoming an entity separate from causation, a _thing_ that simply _was_. Many _things_ in his life were of that nature, he had realised on one pained, sleepless night a few weeks back. There had been ample reasons for them in the first place, but those reasons had grown detached and distant, and yet the habits persisted.

Perhaps he would write to Minerva. What would be a normal way of asking after the health of an old student he openly despised? The brat had apparently got himself killed and resurrected. Was anyone even monitoring if that had had any repercussions on his body? And the destruction of the Horcrux, had that had an effect on the soundness of his mind? He couldn't ask _that,_ it would be much like asking after Potter's emotional wellbeing. He might perhaps be excused in inquiring about external threat, he thought. Had Potter been assigned an escort to the Ministry hearings? That was a reasonable question, wasn't it?

There was no bloody normal way. His continued interest was perverse and helping no one. But that was another one of those _things_ : when asked, he had told Albus he was protecting the brat for Lily, but he had spoken a lie without realising, because where once his mind would have snapped to an image of her face whenever he thought of the boy's safety, that link had over the years been worn away to nothing. He still didn't think of Potter for Potter's sake, exactly, but he thought of Potter because it was a fact of his being: Harry Potter existed to get into trouble, and Severus Snape's life revolved around trying to get him out of it.

He massaged feeling back into his legs, then got up with a groan. Sweat trickled down his back. A nap, perhaps, to shut his brain up about Potter. He felt like an octogenarian.

He'd spent nearly two decades trapped in his childhood. Now, his mother's quirks or that time Lucius Malfoy complimented his erudition in second year were hazy memories that he needed to consciously pluck from the back of his mind. Lily was one, too. He would go days without thinking of her, and then remember her on a quiet night over a glass of ouzo, and feel nothing but warmth.

He needed to take Potter and do the same thing to him. Wrap him up, put a bow on top and shove him to the recesses of his mind. He would never see the brat again and structuring your life around a live boy who held nothing but contempt for him was considerably less ideal than structuring it around a dead woman. He would think on Potter at most once a week, he decided as he pulled the shutters on the window to his room and collapsed onto the bed, a migraine suddenly taking hold. Once a week, he was allowed to consider Potter as a memory, and get briefly pissed off again about some old stunt he'd pulled. Otherwise, Severus would focus on the present and on the future, whatever those might turn out to be.

He slept a little over two hours. Then, he went out to get dinner, and after, he played cards on the terrace with the carrot's parents and thought about whether it was possible that a combination of scar-removing potions might erase Draco's Dark Mark. A few ingredients might have to be adjusted. Many ingredients might have to be adjusted. Carrot's mother told him to focus on the game, and he did, though he was losing anyway. He didn't think of Lily or Potter or Albus or the war, and when the children came running back from the beach, fever-cheeked and exhausted but still loud, and a foot knocked into his chair, he thought _brat_ before he thought _Death Eater._

The next day, he penned a letter to Minerva. He asked about Potter. He promised himself it would be the last time.


	15. January 3rd, 1999

**January 3rd, 1999.**

Harry had decided to go, and he had never really changed his mind about going: it was only that, first, it had been too early in the morning and he hadn't been ready, then it had been lunch time and he hadn't wanted to interrupt, then what if Snape took a nap in the afternoon, who knew, Harry felt pretty knackered himself, and then he'd started chatting with Kreacher and pretending like it was mighty interesting, and then he'd been tired out from _that,_ and now it was probably a little too late.

But if he didn't go today, then he wouldn't go tomorrow. His courage had been depleted plenty already.

That was how he found himself pulling his Invisibility Cloak on and apparating to Sandsend just short of ten p.m., on the heels of this ill-defined feeling of emotional urgency. Initially, he had thought the letter Snape had sent him on New Year's Eve was a statement of intent, and that he should respond in kind by paying him a reconciliatory visit. Then he'd remembered Snape's words from that afternoon, _not that it matters anymore,_ which had sounded pretty final, and couldn't Snape just say exactly what he meant anyway? So, he'd resolved to barge into Snape's new house and demand the man clear up the confusion. He had cycled through the two states of mind so many times, he could barely tell them apart anymore.

The sun had set above the expanse of the sea, which tossed water against the bluff like it was trying to get it to budge. The cliffs bracketed the village to the north. To the south, a road wound along the shore, disappearing behind a gentle turn. Between these two, Sandsend stretched thinly and darkly, the only lights coming from the old houses scattered around the forking road. He pulled the cloak off. It was too dark for anyone to see him anyway. The air smelled like coal, fish and sea salt.

Harry had still been a little ticked off at Hermione when she'd left for Hogwarts, but that didn't mean he had no desire to change things about his life. He just didn't know how to change things about his life. But this, what he was doing now, this was easy enough: show up and hope for the best. It felt like every last one of his plans ever.

He started walking up the road. He had no idea which house Snape's was, and it was bloody cold. He had left his coat at home, thinking he'd be in and out. The wind blew viciously, knocking his glasses askew.

'You alright there, love?' A woman stood smoking on the porch of the nearest house, wrapped in a thick shawl.

'Yeah,' he said. 'I'm looking for a house, actually. Have you had anyone move in recently?'

'Oh, right, what's his name,' the woman leaned against the balustrade, then puffed on her cigarette pensively. 'Something like snake, sounds like?'

'Snape, yeah.'

'That's it,' she seemed genuinely pleased. 'You keep walking straight up there, and it's the last house on the road, just where the cliffs start, you see that?'

Harry did see. It was impossible to make out much detail, but one solitary light was still on, and in the faint glow he could see the house stood on a ledge, halfway up the cliff already, looming above the rest of the village. He thought it was very appropriate.

'Thank you,' he said.

'No bother. How did you get here, love? I've not heard a car.'

'Oh, no, I, uh, I walked,' he gestured to the winding road.

'You walked? All the way from Whitby, in weather like this?'

'Yeah.'

The woman shook her head like she'd never heard of a braver feat. 'You're something, love. Better get going before you get your head knocked clean off your neck.'

She considered him, then jogged down the stairs to push the shawl into his hands.

'Cover up your ears, will you,' she instructed briskly. 'We're always home. You can give it back any time, alright?'

Harry was disproportionately touched. He thanked her again and started up the road, thinking he looked a little like a dementor, and wondering if Snape would be startled.

Shortly, he was knocking on the door. He had no idea what he would say. He hated feeling so uncertain. The shawl helped.

Snape opened the door. He gave no indication that he was startled, but it did take him a beat to speak.

'Mr Potter,' he said.

'Hi,' said Harry. 'Just thought I'd drop by.'

He should have thought of a plan.

'I see,' Snape said, though he sounded as if he very much didn't. 'Well, come in.'

He led him straight to the kitchen, where a kettle was humming on the stove. None of the tiles were damaged, Harry noted. The cupboards were all light wood, dated but well-kept. You could see one wall of the cliff through the window, with moss carved into it as if to cover up the cracks. The wet, dewy smell of it drifted through the creak.

'Have you eaten?' Snape asked.

'Yeah.' Harry had eaten. Breakfast. Snape hadn't specified.

'What would you like to drink then?' he had jerked open a cupboard and was examining the contents critically. 'I have black tea—I don't believe you need any help staying out of bed at night, I'm not giving you coffee—I can make hot chocolate—'

'That, then,' Harry said immediately, less because he genuinely fancied hot chocolate, and more because Snape was apparently in a mood, and if that mood meant Harry could go on to live the rest of his life in the knowledge that he'd had Severus Snape make him hot chocolate, you'd better believe he was going to seize that opportunity.

They were silent for a while. Harry tried to distract himself from the awkwardness of it by watching carefully as Snape heated up the milk and cream, broke off squares of dark chocolate, measured off cocoa powder and sugar. The room swelled with heavy notes of chocolate and vanilla. Harry wanted to take this moment, too, and tuck it away for later, right into his growing collection of good things to remember.

He trailed behind as Snape carried the mugs into the drawing room, where a fire roared in the fireplace. A few boxes of books lay unpacked around the table, the lightbulb on the ceiling was bare and had cables sticking out, the rug hadn't been unrolled yet and the walls were marked with dark squares where paintings used to hang. But the sofa and coffee table were good and ready, and the cushions wonderfully soft as Harry sank into them. Snape put himself in the opposite corner, as far away from Harry as he could make it.

'It's really nice,' Harry said about the room, because it was: bright and uncluttered, with space around the table and a view of the sea through the large gridded windows. 'I've met one of your neighbours, by the way. She gave me her shawl.'

'Finding devout fans wherever you go, Potter?' Snape drawled, but it lacked malice. Harry thought he'd say something else, but he fell silent in favour of sipping on his chocolate and staring into the flames, very careful not to look at him. Harry elected to do the same. The chocolate was thickly sweet and so hot it nearly burnt his tongue.

'You gave me the address, in that letter you sent.' He was terrible at silences. 'I assumed it was like, half an invitation. Or at least that it meant you weren't going to go through with the whole, I don't know you anymore thing.'

'I might have overreacted in the moment,' Snape admitted softly. 'I had not been prepared to be met with quite so much hysterical obstinacy. A foolish oversight on my part.'

'Yeah, well, it was a pretty terrible thing to tell someone,' Harry felt a little flare of anger. 'But I guess I escalated the whole thing, too. I'm s—'

'I swear on every last deity, Potter, if you dare apologise to me, I'm pouring your chocolate down the drain.'

Harry mimed zipping up his lips. His teeth showed through when he grinned.

'Okay, so does that mean I can still come help with the research? Or, potions prep and stuff?'

Snape sighed. 'You can come and help with whatever you like.'

'You don't have to sound so excited about it.'

Snape glanced at him and Harry looked away. He was aware he might have been pouting a little and he didn't want to see if Snape noticed.

'I know all students believe their teachers to lead sheltered lives, Potter, but I would hope I can still think of things a little more invigorating than cutting up flobberworms.'

'You don't know what you're saying, sir. Flobberworms are usually the highlight of my week.'

He felt a little sad at once, realising it wasn't untrue.

Snape must have sensed something in his voice, because he cleared his throat and asked, 'And how have you been, Mr Potter?' in a very solemn tone.

'I've been fine, thank you,' he lied. Snape arched an eyebrow. 'I've not been cutting myself, if that's what you're asking.'

'I would expect you to hold _fine_ to a slightly higher standard,' Snape said evenly. 'But that is something, I suppose.'

Harry shrugged. He had more of his chocolate.

Snape opened his mouth, then closed it. He did it again. Finally, he said, careful with each word,

'Would you tell me why you did it?'

Harry didn't have an answer to that. He was convinced if he tried to form one, words would come out all jumbled together into all the wrong messages, and only make him sound like a spoiled, whimpering child, or maybe like a dickhead.

He was about to say no, but then suddenly he wasn't saying no at all, feeling again the tide of that emotional urgency, like maybe that had been the sole cause for it, that had been what he needed to hurry up for,

'I'm just so tired all the time,' he was saying. 'And I don't know why, because I don't do anything, and that makes me miserable, but then I'm too miserable to do anything, and even if I have a day when I've managed to force myself, and I feel better and like everything's going to be fine, it doesn't matter because a moment later it's gone and I'm back to being useless. And all my friends are doing so many things, they're all doing well and they manage to sleep through the night and then wake up and pull themselves together, and they've all been through pretty much the same thing, but I'm just too weak to—I don't know what's wrong with me. I wasn't trying to kill myself, I swear, I just wasn't very careful about not killing myself, because yeah, sometimes it feels like it doesn't matter anyway, because what's the point if I'm not even happy, I'm just wasting resources and I'm wasting everybody's time, especially if I can't get better, or what if it takes, like, years, or n—never happens? There's literally no point to me living if it never happens, is there? And I know that thinking like that doesn't help, that I need to not think about that because then I won't ever get better, but I can't stop and that's my fault, I'm just—I don't know how to—I don't know how to stop being like this.'

He was crying silent tears, those quick ones that you notice only from the damp trails left on your cheeks. He set his chocolate on the table with trembling hands.

'Why do you need to be happy?' nothing in Snape's tone suggested he'd realised Harry was crying, even though it was fairly obvious.

'What do you mean, of course I want to—'

'No,' Snape stopped him. 'I understand that you _want_ to be happy. But we don't always get what we want, and plenty live long years not being particularly happy. The way you spoke implied it was something more pressing than a simple want.'

'I don't know, I just—I can't _do_ anything when I'm this miserable, and I'm not much fun to be around, either, so if I don't—I'm just no use. And I hate feeling like this, like I'm not giving back or, making it worth it to—' he had to stop and swallow down a sob. If he went on any more, he would break down for good, and he did not particularly fancy helping Snape fill up his Harry's Hysterics collection.

'Harry,' Snape said, the name coming out odd and strained. 'You don't need to earn your right to be alive.'

'I'm not—'

'Be quiet,' Snape ordered. 'You have just told me that is what you are attempting to do. That you must produce some sort of value on a regular basis, like potions for St. Mungo's, I imagine, or saving the wizarding community from collapse, or your school friends from death or an Azkaban sentence or hurt feelings, because otherwise, your very existence is pointless and nothing but a waste of air.'

It sounded worse when Snape said it.

'You don't need to do any of those things to deserve to be alive. You don't ever need to perform a single good deed or change anyone's life, or whatever nonsense you're thinking of. I am confident you will do plenty of those things in the many years that you have before you, but even if you didn't, your life would still have value. A teething baby does not contribute greatly to the world, and yet you wouldn't tell the parents that they are wasting their energies and resources staying up all night to tend to it, would you?'

'Yeah, but the baby could grow up and then win an Order of Merlin, you don't know.'

'Yes, I am certain that the baby being the potential recipient of the Order of Merlin is the sole reason its life is afforded any value in society.'

This sounded like the sort of opinion Snape might hold on babies, actually, but Harry thought that was probably offensive to say. 'It's still different. Babies are just—they're cute, right, they don't need to do anything to bring something into the world or whatever, because they make their parents and, and other people, they make them happy just because they exist.'

'So do you,' Snape said.

Harry wouldn't have been able to swallow down this sob. He pulled his knees up to his chin and buried it in the crook of his arm instead, as he fought desperately to control his breathing. It took a few minutes before he could claim success.

'I, for one, have been quite miserable for much of my life,' Snape told him once Harry had managed to peer up through his tears, 'but I have it on good authority I bring joy into the life of the Chosen One himself, any time I have him cut up flobberworms.'

'It's the flobberworms that make me happy though, not you,' Harry pointed out wetly.

'I stand corrected. I will be going to throw myself off the cliffside now. I'm afraid my life has lost all sense of purpose.'

Harry laughed. Once he started, he couldn't stop: the next laugh came, and the next, and he was hyperventilating and hurting his stomach something horrible, and it hadn't even been _that_ funny, but whenever he attempted to get a hold of himself, Snape's words or face would float up to the surface of his shaky consciousness, and set him off again.

Finally, coarse from wheezing and wiping off tears, he looked at Snape. He had expected a bemused expression, or even annoyance, but saw instead a strange smile, too soft to be laughter.

'What?' he asked.

'You have your mother's laugh,' Snape said.

Something in Harry's chest twisted and dropped.

'She also sounded like a seal under the Cruciatus curse,' Snape elaborated, smile twisting into a smirk.

Harry leaned back against the headrest. Then, he started sobbing.

'Oh, for—why are you crying _now_?'

'Don't know,' Harry laughed. 'No reason.'

'I swear, Potter, you have the emotional bandwidth of a toddler.'

'Did my mum have the emotional bandwidth of a toddler, too?'

'No, she was perfectly mentally stable. Even your father seemed to possess some emotional consistency. No, this is entirely your own contribution. There will be no blaming it on genetics.'

Snape then brewed him camomile tea that he spiked with Calming Draught in full view of Harry, like some sort of power move. Harry wasn't sure whether it had genuinely helped or if he'd simply cried himself dry, but he did feel considerably less hysterical after, and even got off the sofa so that Snape could give him the full tour of the house. He would have preferred not to go into the spare bedroom to avoid awkwardness, but he was going to be staying the night since it had got so late, Snape said, and he needed to go in and dress the bed for him. He refused Harry's help, so Harry went to push the window open instead, and listened a while to the rhythmic crash of the waves, steady like breath.

'You know what we should do?' he asked Snape, still looking out at the open sea. 'We should bake something.'

He didn't have to look to know Snape was staring at him. 'It's nearly midnight.'

'So?'

Snape sighed, with all his usual dramatics. 'I suppose there are worse coping mechanisms,' he said, though he sounded like he couldn't think of a single one.


	16. January 6th, 1999

**January 6th, 1999.**

She was repeating herself. She could swear she'd only just made this argument in the previous line, and now she was making it again. This had to be the worst essay Hermione Granger had ever produced. It was a disgrace. There were so many things to be said about the history of squib persecution in the twentieth century, and she was repeating herself.

She snagged something off the platter to her right. A bun? A sausage? Food. It was food anyway. The Great Hall was bright and noisy at lunch time, brimming with students who had friends to talk to and no overdue essays to frantically finish. Hermione would soon have no friends at all, she thought. She knew Ginny had been disappointed that they hadn't gone out after Christmas, but Hermione had had a million things to do and she wouldn't have been much fun anyway. Ron was acting like everything was fine, but Hermione knew she was being a rubbish girlfriend, endlessly talking over him about her life and never breaking for long enough to ask him about his. Harry, well, Harry was being completely unreasonable, but Hermione was queen of overstepping, she knew, and not listening, and being too much, and she 'didn't understand the concept of space,' and 'you can't single-handedly solve all of the world's problems, Hermione.'

What was she supposed to do, though? Leave everything as is? Give up entirely? Maybe that would be for the best. If this sorry excuse for an essay was anything to go by, everyone might be better off if Hermione stopped trying to change the world.

Oh. She had been re-reading the same sentence. She wasn't repeating herself. She just couldn't read.

A small grey owl swept from above and landed heavily on Hermione's shoulder, startling her into dropping the essay into her eggs. When she glanced over, she saw wide eyes staring at her in utter bemusement. It was Artemis, looking for all the world like she'd forgotten what she was doing here.

The owl did not waste a minute waiting for a reply: the moment Hermione pulled the letter loose, she leapt into flight again, snatching with her a sausage to go.

Wrapped in the parchment, affixed by a piece of string, was a pocket knife. It opened with a click. She felt stupid relief to see that the blade was clean. The letter read simply,

_Dear Hermione,_

_Let's not argue anymore._

_Love,_

_Harry._

'Merlin,' a voice said behind her. 'Merlin, you have to report this.'

Hermione turned to see Draco, frozen to the spot behind her, eyes wide on the knife in her hand. She had successfully avoided him these past few days, and only now saw that he looked terrible. Nearly as bad as she did, she thought.

'Oh, no,' she corrected quickly. 'It's from Harry.'

'Potter? What the hell is wrong with him?'

'It's—it's a gift.'

Draco's eyebrows rode up his forehead. 'A gift,' he repeated, enunciating carefully. 'If this is the sort of gift you appreciate, next year, I will be sure to get you an offensive weapon for Christmas.'

She had sent the earrings back without a note. She had felt a little bad about it because it hadn't been about him, it had been about making a statement, and Hermione got lost in her statements sometimes. Even at his lowest, Harry was still kind and humble enough to extend a hand. When Hermione was low, she read the same sentence over and again, and became too proud to consider collaterals.

Maybe she was a rubbish person. She looked up at Draco, still standing there awkwardly. He was a rubbish person, too.

'Sit down then,' she told him. He seemed tentative. 'Don't worry, I'm not going to stab you.'

He glanced at the nearest group of Gryffindors: third-years, too enamoured with their friends to even notice him. He sat down.

'I had someone try to stab me last Wednesday. It doesn't hurt to be careful.'

'You were _stabbed_?'

'I wasn't stabbed. It was an attempted stabbing,' he said importantly, like being stabbed was far below his station and he was offended that she'd even suggest it. 'I don't know what happened to good old hexes.'

'Hexes are more easily traced,' Hermione pointed out. 'One spell, and your wand will provide all the necessary evidence. It is genuinely smarter to use non-wizarding methods of assault if you wish to shield your identity.'

'It's distasteful, is what it is,' Draco sneered. 'Anyway, this random house elf appeared from thin air and hit the guy on the head with a, this little hammer, you realise—I think they smack meat with it, for whatever reason—'

'A meat tenderizer.'

'Yes, that.'

'A house elf with a meat tenderizer saved you from getting stabbed,' Hermione wanted to make sure she understood this. 'Merlin, who was the attacker? You've reported this, haven't you?'

'I mean, I didn't get a good look at his face before he got himself knocked unconscious by a _crazed house elf_. And I didn't hang around, did I? The thing was terrifying! For all I know, it ate him after.'

'I—okay, that's ridiculous—what did this house elf look like?'

'What do you mean? It looked like a house elf. I don't know, they all look the same to me.'

Alright, so Hermione wasn't _that_ much of a rubbish person. She felt a little better.

'Maybe we shouldn't be talking about house elves if we don't want to argue again,' she said.

'Oh, right,' his face relaxed immediately. It made her feel further better to know that she'd made someone happy today. 'Let's talk about something neutral, shall we?' He peered around the table. 'Pumpkin juice. Do you like pumpkin juice?'

'I do,' Hermione was only half-listening, pulling out her coin as he spoke, to spell on a message to Harry.

_Great Hall. Just received your letter, Harry. I'm sorry. Thank you._

'So do I. Wizards of all heritage like pumpkin juice, muggles like pumpkin juice, squibs like pumpkin juice, even bloodthirsty house elves like pumpkin juice. We have achieved unanimity.'

Hermione tried to remember why she'd invited him to sit again. Well. She would change the world a little at a time, she decided.

'Actually, pumpkin juice isn't much of a thing in the muggle world,' she said.

'Oh.'

Her coin warmed. _What are you guys on about?_ came through in Ron's handwriting. _In the shop. Busy today._

'What about pie?' she leaned across the table to snag a piece of the pear pie from the silver platter, suddenly realising she was starving. This time, she could taste it when she put it in her mouth. 'Everybody likes pie.'

'I don't care much for it, to be honest,' Draco muttered. He had pulled her essay toward him and was now skimming it with a frown. She hoped maybe he would learn something. If she said so, though, that would be Hermione Granger being too much again, so she stayed quiet.

The coin warmed again as Ron's message disappeared to make room for Harry's. _Thank you, too. Really._ Then, _On the way to Whitby for lunch._

'What about coffee?'

Hermione was still grinning down at the coin and barely heard him.

'Hermione.'

'Hmm, what?'

'Do muggles drink coffee?'

Hermione counted down from ten. 'Yes.'

'There you are then,' he nodded satisfied, as if with that simple truth, everything had been solved. It was silly, but in that moment, Hermione couldn't help feeling like maybe it had.

**THE END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you've enjoyed the story and have a moment to spare, please do leave a comment - they always make my day.
> 
> Also, Mason Jars has a sequel now, updating every Thursday and Sunday!


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